i 



AMERICAN LITERATURE 

THROUGH 
ILLUSTRATIVE READINGS 



BY 
SARAH E. SIMONS 

HElAn OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH IN THE HIGH SCHOOLS, 
WASHINGTON, D. C. 



CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

NEW YORK CHICAGO BOSTON 






Copyright, 1915, by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 



FEB "6 1915 




A39163i 



/m 



PREFACE 

This volume is intended as a handbook for high-school 
students of American literature. The purpose of the book 
is to give a fair view of what has been done and is still 
being done in the domain of American letters, and to stimu- 
late, through the illustrations, further reading in and ap- 
preciation of American authors. The work is by no means 
exhaustive, but it is believed that it is representative of 
the periods and the personalities in our literary develop- 
ment. A relatively large space has been given to Hving 
writers and recent Hterary activities because the high- 
hool pupil's interest is emphatically in the present-day 
ithor and his reading is chiefly from contemporary pro- 
uctions. Hence he needs direction and guidance in this 
field as nuch as anywhere. Moreover, through the study 
of the good modern writer, he may be drawn to the classic 
when he sees the dependence of the new writer on the old, 
when he realizes the modern author's appreciation of the 
great and the good in the achievement of earlier men. 

All work of a critical nature has been purposely omitted 
as outside the sphere of interest and comprehension of 
the high-school student. Even in the bibhographies no 
mention is made of books which are works of appraisal 
mainly. Further readings in the particular authors are 
indicated and reference is made to works which shed light 
on the period and on the environment of the author, for 
the sake of atmosphere and background. 



vi Preface 

The character of such a course in American literature 
as is intended by the use of this handbook is extensive 
rather than intensive. The pupils must, from the nature of 
the case, make free use of the library. The mere handling 
of many books is valuable training. A splendid opportu- 
nity is also offered for the preparation of special topics. 
Here the work should become more specialized and de- 
tailed than for the daily class preparation. And last, but 
not least important, such a course gives frequent chance 
for oral reading. Perhaps, indeed, this is the most ef- 
fective means of inducing appreciation of the author vmder 
consideration. Says Professor Rose Colby in Literature 
and Life in the School: "The best response to be secured 
by the teacher from the student," in the work on any bit 
of literature, "is the fullest interpretative vocal rendering 
of it." Thus such a course in American literature may be 
viewed incidentally from various angles as a course in 
library work, or a course in special-topic reports, or a course 
in oral reading — any one of which would be valuable per se. 

The bibliographies contain suggestions for further read- 
ings in the authors treated in this volume and also sug- 
gestions for readings in certain authors from whom, owing 
to copvTight restrictions, it was impossible to get extracts. 

Thanks are due to the publishers for permission to use 
the following selections: The Open Shop, by L>Tnan Abbott, 
The Outlook Company; The Story of the Doodang, from 
Uncle Remus and the Little Boy, by Joel Chandler Harris, 
Small, Maynard &"Co; To the Death, from The Call of the 
Wild, by Jack London, Some Memories of Childhood, from 
Richard Canrl, by Winston Churchill, The Child and 
America to England, by George E. Woodberry, Bimini and 
the Fountain of Youth, from Tales of the Enchanted Islands 
of the Atlantic, by Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Changes 



Preface vii 

of the Nineteenth Century, from Democracy and Education, 
by Nicholas Murray Butler, Ode on the Centenary of Abra- 
ham Lincoln, by Percy MacKaye, The Macmillan Company; 
The Wheat Pit, from The Pit, by Frank Norris, The Count 
and the Wedding Guest, by "0. Henry," Nature in Poetry, 
from Songs of Nature, by John Burroughs, The Man with 
the Hoe, by Edwin Markham, Doubleday, Page & Com- 
pany; The Call of the Bugles, by Richard Hovey, Duffield 
& Company; John Gilley, from John Gilley, Maine Farmer 
and Fisherman, by Charles W. Eliot, Hughes School Days, 
from Hugh Wynne: Free Quaker, by S. Weir Mitchell, China 
to the Ranging Eye, from The Changing Chinese, by Edward 
Alsworth Ross, The Century Company; The Old Man and 
Jim, by James Whitcomb Riley, The Bobbs-Merrill Com- 
pany; By the Pacific Oceati and Dead in the Sierras, by 
Joaquin Miller, The Death of McKinley, from The Lessons 
of the Tragedy, in The Voice of the Scholar, by David Starr 
Jordan, The Whi taker & Ray-Wiggin Company; Worth 
While and Recrimination, by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, The 
W. B. Conkey Company; My Double and How He Undid 
Me, by Edward Everett Hale, Little, Brown & Company; 
His Christmas Miracle, from The Raid of the Guerilla, by 
Mary N. Murfree, The J. B. Lippincott Company; A 
Southern Girl, and My Little Girl, by Samuel Minturn Peck, 
The Frederick A. Stokes Company; The Vocabulary, from 
Self-Cultivation in English, by George H. Palmer, The 
Thomas Y. Crowell Company; The Death of the Flowers, 
To a Waterfowl, The Hurricane, and To the Fringed Gentian, 
by William Cullen Bryant, D. Appleton & Company; A 
Coon Song, by Paul Lawrence Dunbar, The Feeling for 
Literature, from Books and Culture, by Hamilton Wright 
Mabie, The Other One, by Harry Thurston Peck, Dodd, 
Mead & Company. 



viii Preface 

The selections from the writings of Longfellow, Whittier, 
Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Lowell, Hohnes, Stowe, 
Phelps, Alice and Phoebe Gary, Sill, Hay, Howells, James, 
Gilder, and Arlo Bates are reprinted by permission and 
special arrangement with the publishers, the Houghton 
Mifflin Gompany. 

S. E. S. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

General View i , 

General Bibliography 3 

PART I. THE PRELIMINARY PERIOD 
CHAPTER I. THE COLONIAL EPOCH 

1. Captain John Smith (i 580-1631) 5 

2. Willlam Strachey (d. 1617) . 7 

3. Richard Mather, Thomas Welde, and John Eliot 

— The Bay Psalm Book (1640) 9 

4. Anne Bradstreet (1613-1672) 10 

5. Benjamin Harris — The New England Primer (1687- 

1690) .12 

6. Samuel Sewall (1652-1730) 13 

7. The Mathers — Richard (i 596-1669) ; Increase (1639- 

1723); Cotton (1663-1728) ....... 14 

8. Jonathan Edwards (1703-17 58) 16 

9. John Woolman (1720-1772) 17 

CHAPTER II. THE REVOLUTIONARY ERA 
I. Orations and State Papers 

1. James Otis (1725-1783) 21 

2. Benjamin Franklin (i 706-1 790) 24 

3. George Washington (1732-1799) . 28 

4. Patrick Henry (i 736-1 799) 3° 

ix 



X Contents 

PACE 

5. Thomas Paine (i 737-1809) 33 

6. Alexander Hamilton (i 757-1804) 34 

7. Thomas Jefferson (i 743-1826) 37 

II. Songs and Ballads 

8. Francis Hopkinson (1737-1791) 41 

Q. Joseph Hopkinson (1770-1842) 43 

10. Ballad of Nathan Hale 45 

11. John Trumbull (i 750-1831) 47 

12. Joel Barlow (1754-1812) 49 

13. Timothy Dwight (1752-1817) 51 

III. Other Literary Records 

14. Philip Freneau (1752-1832) 53 

15. Charles Brockden Brown (1771-1810) .... 55 

16. RoYALL Tyler (1757-1826) 58 

IV. A Literary Anomaly 

17. Phillis Wheatley Peters 59 

PART II. THE NATIONAL PERIOD 



CHAPTER III. THE EARLY WRITERS 

, I. Great Names 

1. Washington Irving (1783-1859) 63 

2. James Fenimore Cooper (i 789-1851) 71 

3. Daniel Webster (i 782-1852) 80 

4. Edgar Allan Poe (i 809-1 849) 83 

5. William Cullen Bryant (i 794-1878) 91 



Contents xi 

II. Of Lesser Note 

PAGE 

1. Fitz-Greene Halleck (1790-1867) 97 

2. Joseph R. Drake (1795-1820) 98 

3. Francis Scott Key (i 779-1843) . 100 

4. Samuel Woodworth (1785-1842) loi 

5. Emma H. Willard (1787-1870) 102 

6. John Howard Payne (1791-1852) 103 

7. George Morris (1802-1864) 104 

8. Nathaniel Parker Willis (1807-1867) . . . . 105 

9. William Gilmore Simms (1806-1870) no 

10, Richard Henry Dana, Jr. (1815-1882) . . . .in 

11, Rev. Samuel F. Smith (1808-1895) • • • • • 118 

CHAPTER IV. WRITERS OF THE MID-CENTURY 
AND AFTER 



I. Great Names • 

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) 120 

Henry D. Thoreau (1817-1862) 131 

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) 133 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882). . . 147 

John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892) .... 161 

James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) 166 

Oliver Wendell Holmes (i 809-1 894) 177 



II. Of Lesser Note 
A. Prose — Fiction 

1. Harriet Beecher Stowe (181 2-1896) 193 

2. Helen Fiske Jackson (1831-1885) 197 

3. Louisa M. Alcott (1832-1888) 200 



\ 



xii Contents 

PACK 

Charles F. Browne (1834-1867) 201 

Henry W. Shaw (1818-1885) 202 

Edgar Wilson Nye (i 850-1 896) 203 

Donald Grant Mitchell (1822-1908) 204 

Edward Everett Hale (1822-1909) 207 

Lewis Wallace (1827-1905) 217 

Frank R. Stockton (1834-1902) 217 

Bret Harte (1839-1902) • . 223 

Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836-1907) 224 

Samuel L. Clemens (1835-1910) 224 

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward (1844-191 i) . . 229 

B. Prose — Non-Fiction 

Edward Everett (1794-1865) 235 

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) 240 

Wendell Philips (1811-1884) . . . . . . .242 

John Lothrop Motley^ (1814-1877) 244 

Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) 247 

Bayard Tayloi^ (1825-1878) 251 

George William Curtis (1824-1892) 254 

Francis Parkman (1823-1893) 256 

John Fiske (1842-1901) 259 

Henry W. Grady^ (1850-1889) 259 

Charles Eliot Norton^ (1827-1908) 262 

Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1823-1911) . . . 264 

C. Poetry 

I. Albert Pike (1809-1891) 268 

3. Theodore O'Hara (1820-1867) 270 



Contents xiii 

PAGE 

Henry Timrod (1829-1867) 273 

Paul Hamilton Hayne (1830-1886) 274 ic 

Sidney Lanier (1842-1881) 275 ■ 

Stephen C. Foster (1826-1864) 280 v 

Alice Gary (1820-1871) 281 

Phcebe Gary (1824-1871) 282 

Thomas Buchanan Read (1822-1872) . . . . . 283 * 

Emf.Y Dickinson (1830-1886) 285 

Edward Rowland Sill (1841-1887) 286 

Emma Lazarus (1849-1887) 287 

Walt Whitman (18x9-1892) 287 • 

Richard Henry Stoddard (1825-1903) . . . . 290 > 

Julla Ward Howe (1819-1910) 291 ' 

John Hay (1838-1905) 292 



CHAPTER V. LATER AND PRESENT-DAY 
WRITERS 



I. Prose— Fiction 



1. S. Weir Mitchell (1830-1914) . . 

2. Willlam Dean Ho wells (1837- ) 

3. Francis Hopkinson Smith (1838- ) 

4. George Washington Gable (1844- 

5. Joel Ghandler Harris (1848- 1908) 

6. Thomas Nelson Page (1853- ) . 

7. Ruth McEnery Stuart (1856- ) 

8. Henry R. James (1843- ) . . 

9. Frances Hodgsqn Burnett (1849- 



296 
302 
305 
308 
310 
313 
320 
320 
324 



Contents 

VKGZ 

Mary N. Murfree (1850- ) 326 

Margaret Wade Deland (1857- ) 331 

Hamlin Garland (i860- ) 331 

Ernest Thompson-Seton (i860- ) 331 

John Fox, Jr. (1861- ) 333 

Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman (1862- ) • • • • 335 

Edith Wharton (1862- ) 335 

Richard Harding Davis (1864- ) 341 

Frank. Norkis (1870-1902) 344 

WiLLLAM Sidney Porter (0. Henry) (1867-1910) . 350 

Winston Churchill (187 i- ) 355 

Jack London (1876- ) 359 

II. Prose— Non-Fiction 

Lyman Abbott (1835- ) 362 

2. John Burroughs (1837- ) 364 

3. Hamilton Wright Mabie (1845- ) 366 

4. Agnes Repplier (1857- ) 368 

5. Theodore Roosevelt (1858- ) 368 

6. Booker T. Washington <i858- ) 372 

William J. Bryan (i860- ) 374 

FiNLEY Peter Dunne (1867- ) 378 

Charles William Eliot (1834- ) 380 

Thomas R. Lounsbury (1838- ) 385 

George Herbert Palmer (1842- ) 387 

Arlo Bates (1850- ) 391 

David Starr Jordan (1S51- ) 393 

Brander Matthews (1852- ) 395^ 



Contents xv 



PAGE 



Henry van Dyke (1852- ) 400 

Barrett Wendell (1855- ) 405 

WooDROw Wilson (1856- ) 406 1 

Nicholas Murray Butler (1862- ) . . . . 409 

Edward Alsworth Ross (1866- ) 411 

III. Poetry • 

Edmund Clarence Stedman (1833-1908) .... 415 

Richard Watson Gilder (1844- 1909) 415 

Joaquin Miller (1841-1913) 416 

Will Carleton (1845-1912) 417 

Eugene Field (1850-1895) 417 

Edwin Markham (1852- ) 419 

James Whitcomb Riley (1853- ) 421 

Samuel Minturn Peck (1854- ) 423 

Edith Thomas (1854- ) 425 

Henry Cuyler Bunner (1855-1896) 427 

Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1855- ) 429 

George E. Woodberry (1855- ) 432 

Harry Thurston Peck (1856-1914) 433 

Richard Hovey (1864-1900) 434 

William Vaughn Moody (1869-19 10) 437 

Paul Lawrence Dunbar (1872-1906) 437 

Josephine Preston Peabody Marks (1874- ) . 438 

Percy MacKaye (1875- ) 438 



xvi Contents 

. CHAPTER VI 

Tendencies 

»AGB 

I. The American Magazine 442 

II. The American Short Story 446 

III. The American Drama 450 

Index 455 



AMERICAN LITERATURE 

THROUGH 
ILLUSTRATIVE READINGS 



AMERICAN LITERATURE THROUGH 
ILLUSTRATIVE READINGS 

GENERAL VIEW 

When our forefathers came to America theirs was the 
business of a new people in a new land. The work of the 
pioneer lay before them, the conquering of a continent. 
The great struggle against nature and man at first occu- 
pied their whole attention; the forest and the aborigines 
were finally subdued. For a hundred years and more 
thereafter the all-absorbing task was the making of towns 
and the creation of larger social groups. Next occurred 
the momentous contest with kin across the water, the result 
of which was the birth of a nation. And then all thoughts 
were turned toward devising ways and means for the gov- 
ernment of a free, new people. 

Thus, during two hundred years of occupation of the 
new land there was Httle leisure for expressing the life of 
the people in literature. But then came the marvelous 
growth of America through the nineteenth century, when 
consciousness of self, as a nation, grew stronger with the 
passing years, when men had time after the stress and 
strain of the early days to reflect upon the deeds of the past 
and to cast those reflections into permanent form. It is 
only when the consciousness of kin with Enghshmen gives 
way to a stronger "consciousness of kind" with Amer- 
icans that a true American literature comes into being. 
1 



2 American Literature 

Hence we may look upon the output before the nine- 
teenth century, broadly speaking, as preHminary to, 
rather than as an integral part of, American literature. 
The writings of this period fall naturally into two groups, 
those of the Colonial Epoch and those of the Revolutionary 
Era, respectively. 

Since the opening of the nineteenth century, the Hfe in 
America — political, social, and industrial — has created a 
distinctive type of people, and this type has created a dis- 
tinctive literature. From this time on, therefore, we may 
claim an American literature independent of that of En- 
gland, and this period may justly be called the National 
Era in the history of American letters. 



GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY 
I. HISTORY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Abernathy, J. W.: American Literature. 

Bronson, W. C: A Short History of American Literature. 

Burton, R.: Literary Leaders of America. 

Cairns, W. B.: American Literature for Secondary Schools. 

Halleck, R. p.: History of American Literature. 

Long, W. J.: American Literature. 

Macy, J.: The Spirit of American Literature. 

Newcomer, A. G.: American Literature. 

NiCHOL, J.: American Literature. 

Pancoast, H. S.: American Literature. 

Richardson, C. F.: American Literature. 1607-1885. 2 vols. 

Sears, Lorenzo: American Literature in the Colonial and 
National Periods. 

SiMONDS, A. B.: American Song. 

SiMONDS, W. E. : ^ Students' History of American Literature. 

Stedman, E. C: Poets of America. 

Trent, W. P.: American Literature. 1607-1865. ("Litera- 
tures of the World.") 

Tyler, M. C: A History of American Literature During the 
Colonial Time. 1607-1765. 2 vols. 
The Literary History of the American Revolution. 1 763-1 783. 

Wendell, B.: J4 Literary History of America. 

Whitcomb, S. L.: Chronological Outlines of American Litera- 
ture. 

11. SPECIMENS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Brewer, D. J.: The World's Best Orations. 10 vols. 
Bronson, W. C: American Poems. 1625-1892. 
Bryan, W. J.: The World's Famous Orations. 10 vols. 
Bryant, W. C: Library of Poetry and Song. (British and 

American.) 
Cairns, W. B.: Selections from Early American Writers. 1607- 

1800. 
Carpenter, G. R.: American Prose. 
3 



4 American Literature 

Denney, Joseph V.: American Public Addresses. 

Depew, C. M.: The Library of Oratory. 15 vols. 

DuYCKiNCK, E. A. AND G. L. : Cyclopcedia of American Litera- 
ture. 2 vols. 

Gilder, Jeanette L.: Masterpieces of the World's Best Litera- 
ture. (British and American.) 

Harris, J. C: American Wit and Humor. 

Howard, J. R.: One Hundred Best American Poems. 

Johnston, A., and Woodburn, J. A. : American Orations. 4 vols. 

Knowles, F. L.: The Golden Treasury of American Songs and 
Lyrics. 

Learned, W.: Treasury of American Verse. 

Long, A. W.: American Poems. 1776-1900. 

Matthews, B.: Poems of American Patriotism. 

Moore, F.: American Eloquence. 

Songs and Ballads of the American Revolution. 

O'Connell, J. M.: Southern Orators — Speeches and Orations. ^' 

Page, C. H.: The Chief American Poets. 
Songs and Lyrics. 

Scudder, H. E.: American Prose. 
American Poetry. 

Spofford, a. R., and Gibbon, C.: Library of Choice Literature. 
10 vols. 

Stedman, E. C.: An American Anthology. 

Stedman, E. C., and Hutchinson, E. M.: Library of American 
Literature. 11 vols. 

Stevenson, B. E.: Poems of American History. 

The Home Book of Verse. (British and American.) 

Trent, W. P. : Southern Writers. Selections in Prose and Verse. 

Trent, W. P., and Wells, B. W.: Colonial Prose and Poetry. 
1607-1775. 3 vols. 

Warner, C. D.: Library of the World's Best Literature. 

Weber, W. F. : Selections from the Southern Poets. 



PART I 
THE PRELIMINARY PERIOD 

CHAPTER I 

THE COLONIAL EPOCH 

The truism that the literature of a people must reflect 
the life, both objective and subjective, of that people is 
well illustrated by the writings of the early settlers of 
America. They were Enghshmen, living out of England. 
Their ideas and ideals were brought over from the mother 
country. Life in the colonies was pioneer on the one hand 
and reUgious on the other; the writers were, roughly 
speaking, either adventurers or ministers. Hence the 
literary records of the time took the form of chronicles or 
diaries and xeHgious homilies or sermons. The following 
selections are typical. 

I. Captain John Smith (i 580-1631), gentleman adventurer 
and soldier of fortune, was one of the founders of Jamestown 
and became the mainstay of the Virginia colony. The dra- 
matic story of Pocahontas keeps his memory green. Though 
plain and blunt, his style is picturesque and graphic. His 
True Relation of such occurrences and accidents of note, as hath 
happened in Virginia since the first planting of that colony etc. 
was the first English book produced in America. It was pub- 
hshed in London in 1608. 

(From John Smith's True Relation) 

Powhatan understanding we detained certaine Salvages, 
sent his Daughter, a child of tenne yeares old, which not 
5 



6 American Literature 

only for feature, countenance, and proportion, much ex- 
ceedeth any of the rest of his people, but for wit, and spirit, 
the only N on panel of his Country: this hee sent by his 
most trustie messenger, called Rawhunt, as much exceed- 
ing in deformitie of person, but of a subtill wit, and crafty 
understanding, he with a long circumstance, told mee, 
how well Powhatan, loved and respected mee, and in that 
I should not doubt any way of his kindnesse, he had sent 
his child, which he most esteemed, to see me, a Deere, and 
bread, besides for a present. . . , 

Opechankanough, sent also unto us, that for his sake, we 
would release two that were his friends, and for a token 
sent me his shooting Glove, and Bracer, which the day 
our men was taken upon, separating himselfe from the rest 
a long time, intreated to speak with me. ... In the 
afternoone ... we guarded them as before to the Church, 
and after prayer, gave them to Pocahuntas, the Kings 
Daughter, in regard of her fathers kindnesse in sending her: 
after having well fed them, as all the time of their impris- 
onment, we gave them their bowes, arrowes, or what else 
they had, and with much content, sent them packing. 
Pocahuntas, also we requited, with such trifles as con- 
tented her, to tel that we had used the Paspaheyans very 
kindly in so releasing them . . . two daies after, a Paspa- 
heyan, came to shew us a ghstering Minerall stone: and 
with signes demonstrating it to be in great aboundance, 
like unto Rockes, with some dozen more, I was sent to 
seeke to digge some quantitie, and the Indian to conduct 
me: but suspecting this some trick to delude us, for to get 
some Copper of us, or with some ambuscado to betray us, 
seeing him falter in his tale, beeing two miles on our 
way, led him ashore, where abusing us from place to 
place, and so seeking either to have drawne us with him 
into the woods, or to have given us the slippe; I shewed 
him Copper, which I promised to have given him, if he had 
performed his promise, but for his scoffing and abusing us, 
I gave twentie lashes with a Rope, and his bowes and 
arrowes, bidding him shoote if he durst, and so let him goe. 

In all this time, our men being all or the most part well 



The Colonial Epoch 7 

recovered, and we not wilKng to trifle away more time then 
necessitie enforced us unto, we thought good for the bet- 
ter content of the adventurers, in some reasonable sort 
to fraight home Maister Nelson with Cedar wood, about 
which, our men going with willing minds, was in very good 
time effected, and the ship sent for England; wee now 
remaining being in good health, all our men wel con- 
tented, free from mutinies, in love one with another, and 
as we hope in a continuall peace with the Indians, where 
we doubt not but by God's gracious assistance, — to see 
our Nation to enioy a Country, not onely exceeding pleas- 
ant for habitation, but also very profitable for comerce 
in generall, no doubt pleasing to almightie God, honour- 
able to our gracious Soveraigne, and commodious gen- 
erally to the whole Kingdome. 

2. William Strachey, an English gentleman who died about 
1617, gives us an account of his perilous voyage to Jamestown, 
which is interesting because Shakespeare was probably influ- 
enced by it in his description of the wreck in The Tempest. 

A Storm off the Bermudas 

(From A True Reportory of the Wracke and Redemption of Sir 
Thomas Gates. 16 10) 

On St. James his day, July 24, being Monday (prepar- 
ing for no less all the black night before) the clouds gather- 
ing thick upon us, and the winds singing and whistling most 
unusually, ... a dreadful storm and hideous began to 
blow from out the Northeast, which, swelling and roaring 
as it were by fits, some hours with more violence than others, 
at length did beat all light from heaven, which like an hell 
of darkness, turned black upon us. . . . 

For four and twenty hours the storm, in a restless tumult, 
had blown so exceedingly, as we could not apprehend in 
our imaginations any possibility of greater violence, yet 
did we still find it, not only more terrible, but more con- 
stant, fury added to fury, . . . nothing heard that could 
give comfort, nothing seen that might encourage hope. . . . 

Our sails, wound up, lay without their use, and . . . 



8 American Literature 

the Sea swelled above the Clouds, and gave battle unto 
heaven. It could not be said to rain, the waters like 
whole Rivers did flood in the ayre. . . . What shall I say ? 
Winds and Seas were as mad as fury and rage could make 
them. . . . 

Once so huge a Sea brake upon the poop and quarter, 
upon us, as it covered our ship from stern to stem, Hke a 
garment or a vast cloud. It filled her brimful for a while 
within, from the hatches up to the spar deck. . . . 

During all this time the heavens looked so black upon 
us, that it was not possible the elevation of the Pole might 
be observed; not a star by night nor sunbeam by day 
was to be seen. Only upon the Thursday night, Sir George 
Summers being upon the watch, had an apparition of a 
little round light, like a faint star, trembhng and stream- 
ing along with a sparkling blaze, half the height upon the 
mainmast, and shooting sometimes from shroud to shroud, 
tempting to settle as it were upon any of the four shrouds, 
and for three or four hours together, or rather more, half 
the night it kept with us, running sometimes along the 
mainyard to the very end, and then returning. At which 
Sir George Summers called divers about him and showed 
them the same, who observed it with much wonder and 
carefulness. But upon a sudden, towards the morning 
watch, they lost the sight of it and knew not what way it 
made. . . . 

Tuesday noon till Friday noon we bailed and pumped 
two thousand tun, and yet, do what we could, when our 
ship held least in her (after Tuesday night second watch) 
she bore ten foot deep, . . . and it being now Friday, the 
fourth morning, it wanted little but that there had been 
a general determination, to have shut up hatches and 
commending our sinful souls to God, committed the ship 
to the mercy of the sea. Surely that night we must have 
done it, and that night had we then perished; but see the 
goodness and sweet introduction of better hope by our 
merciful God given unto us. Sir George Summers, when 
no man dreamed of such happiness, had discovered and 
cried ''Land!" Indeed the morning now three quarters 



The Colonial Epoch 9 

spent, had won a little clearness from the days before, and 
it being better surveyed, the very trees were seen to move 
with the wind upon the shore-side. 

(Compare The Tempest, Act I, Scene I.) 

3. The Bay Psahn Book, printed at Cambridge m 1640, was 
the first English book published in America. It was a metrical 
version of the Psalms of David, made by three divines of colo- 
nial fame — Richard Mather, Thomas Welde, and John Eliot. 
The verse is stilted and inartistic, "a sad mechanic exercise" 
indeed, as will be seen from the following. 



PSALME XIX 
TO THE CHIEFE MUSICIAN A PSALME OF DAVID 

The heavens doe declare 

the majesty of God: 
also the firmament shews forth 

his handy-work abroad. 

2. Day speaks to day, knowledge 

night hath to night declar'd. 

3. There neither speach nor language is, 

where their voyce is not heard. 

4. Through all the earth their line 

is gone forth, & unto 
the utmost end of all the world, 

their speaches reach also: 
A Tabernacle hee 

in them pitcht for the Sun. 

5. Who Bridegroom like from's chamber goes 

glad Giants-race to run. 

6. From heavens utmost end, 

his course and compassing; 
to ends of it, & from the heat 
thereof is hid nothing. 



10 American Literature 



PSALME C 



Make yee a joyful! sounding noyse 
unto Jehovah, all the earth: 

2. Serve yee Jehovah with gladnes: 
before his presence come with mirth. 

3. Know, that Jehovah he is God, 
who hath us formed it is hee, 

& not ourselves: his owne people 
& sheepe of his pasture are wee. 

^' 4. Enter into his gates with prayse, 

into his Courts with thankf uUnes : 
make yee confession unto him, 
& his name reverently blesse. 

5. Because Jehovah he is good, 
for evermore is his mercy: 
& unto generations all 
continue doth his verity. 
(Compare the Psalms.) 

4. Anne Bradstreet (1613-1672), extravagantly called the 
"Tenth Muse lately sprung up in America," was the daughter 
of a Puritan soldier and the wife of a Puritan gentleman who 
was at one time governor of Massachusetts. Her literary 
work shows the influence of contemporary English poets, 
especially of John Donne and George Herbert. Her verses 
are strained and artificial in style but breathe the true Puritan 
spirit of her surroundings. 

(From Contemplations) 

Sometime now past in the Autumnal Tide, 
When Phoebus wanted but one hour to bed, 

The trees all richly clad, yet void of pride. 
Were gilded o'er by his rich golden head. 

Their leaves and fruits seem'd painted, but was true 

Of green, of red, of yellow, mixed hue, 

Rapt were my senses at this delectable view. 



The Colonial Epoch 11 

I wist not what to wish, yet sure, thought I, 

If so much excellence abide below, 
How excellent is He that dwells on high ! 

Whose power and beauty by his works we know; 
Sure he is goodness, wisdom, glory, light, 
That hath this underworld so richly dight: 
More Heaven than Earth was here, no winter and no night 

Then on a stately oak I cast mine eye. 

Whose ruffling top the clouds seem'd to aspire; 

How long since thou wast in thine infancy ? 

Thy strength, and stature, more thy years admire; 

Hath hundred winters past since thou wast born, 

Or thousand since thou breakest thy shell of horn? 

If so, all these as naught Eternity doth scorn. 

Then higher on the glistering Sun I gaz'd 
Whose beams were shaded by the leafy tree; 

The more I look'd, the more I grew amaz'd. 
And softly said, what glory's like to thee ? 

Soul of this world, this Universe's eye, 

No wonder, some made thee a Deity: 

Hag I not better known (alas) , the same had I. 



Art thou so full of glory, that no eye 

Hath strength, thy shining rays once to behold? 
And is thy splendid throne erect so high. 

As to approach it, can no earthly mould? 
How full of glory then must thy Creator be. 
Who gave this bright light lustre unto thee ! 
Admir'd, ador'd forever, be that Majesty. 



When I behold the heavens as in their prime, 

And then the earth (though old) still clad in green, 

The stones and trees, insensible of time. 
Nor age nor wrinkle on their front are seen; 

If winter come, and greenness then do fade. 



12 American Literature 

A Spring returns, and they more youthful made; 
But Man grows old, lies down, remains where once he's 
laid. 

Time, the fatal wrack of mortal things. 
That draws oblivion's curtains over Kings, 

Their sumptuous monuments, men know them not, 
Their names without a record are forgot. 

Their parts, their ports, their pomp's all laid in th' dust, 

Nor wit, nor gold, nor buildings 'scape time's rust; 
But he whoa^name is grav'd in the white stone 
Shall last and shine when all of these are gone, 

5. The New England Primer was published between 1687 
and 1690 by one Benjamin Harris at his coffee-house and book- 
store in Boston "by the Town Pump near the Change." It 
contained the alphabet, lists of words, and short prayers. An 
illustration is given below. 

A In Adam's Fall 
We sinned all. 

B Heaven to find, 
The Bible Mind. 

C Christ crucify'd 
For sinners dy'd. 

D The Deluge drown'd 
The Earth around. 

E Elijah hid 

By Ravens fed. 

F The judgment made 
FeUx afraid. 

G As runs the Glass, 
Our Life doth pass. 

H My Book and Heart 
Must never part. 



The Colonial Epoch 13 

I Job feels the Rod, — 
Yet Blesses God. 

K Proud Korah's troop 
Was swallowed up. 

6. Samuel Sewall (1652-1730) served at one time as Chief 
Justice of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts. He was one of 
the judges who condemned the victims of the Salem witchcraft 
delusion. For this act he afterward repented and did penance 
by an annual fast. From 1673 to 1729 he kept a diary which 
may be compared with that of Pepys on account of its piquant 
style and its unconscious humor. An extract follows. 

The Courting of Madam Winthrop 
(From The Sewall Papers, volume III) 

OctobF 31. At night I visited Madam Winthrop about 
6 p. m. They told me she was gon to Madam Mico's. 
I went thither and found she was gon; so return'd to her 
house, read the Epistles to the Galatians, Ephesians in 
Mr. Eyre's Latin Bible . . . left the Gazett in the Bible, 
which told Sarah of, bid her present my Service to Mrs. 
Winthrop, and tell her I had been to wait on her if she had 
been at home. . . . 

NovF 4^'' Friday, Went again, about 7. a-clock; found 
there Mr. John Walley and his wife: sat discoursing 
pleasantly. . . . Madam W. serv'd Comfeits to us. After 
a-while a Table was spread, and Supper was set. I urg'd 
Mr. Walley to Crave a Blessing; but he put it upon me. 
About 9. they went away. I ask'd Madam what fash- 
ioned isfeck-lace I should present her with, She said, None 
at all. I ask'd her Whereabout we left off last time; men- 
tion'd what I had offer'd to give her; Ask'd her what she 
would give me; She said she could not Change her Condi- 
tion: She had said so from the beginning; could not be 
so far from her Children. . . . Quoted the Apostle Paul 
affirming that a single Life was better than a Married. I 
answer'd That was for the present Distress. Said she 



14 American Literature 

had not pleasure in things of that nature as formerly: I 
said, you are the fitter to make me a Wife. If she held in 
that mind, I must go home and bewail my Rashness in 
making more haste than good Speed. However, con- 
sidering the Supper. I desired her to be within next Mon- 
day night, if we Hv'd so long. Assented. . . . About lo. 
I said I would not disturb the good orders of her House, 
and came away. She not seeming pleas'd with my Com- 
ing away. . . . 

Monday, Nov' 7'.'' ... I went to Mad. Winthrop; found 
her rocking her Httle Katee in the Cradle. I excus'd my 
coming so late (near Eight). She set me an arm'd Chair 
and Cusheon; and so the Cradle was between her arm'd 
chair and mine. Gave her the remnant of my Almonds; 
She did not eat of them as before; but laid them away; 
I said I came to enquire whether she had alter'd her mind 
since Friday, or remained of the same mind still. She 
said, Thereabouts. I told her I loved her, and was so fond 
as to think that she loved me : she said had a great respect 
for me. I told her, I had made her an offer, without ask- 
ing any advice; she had so many to advise with, that 'twas 
an hindrance. The Fire was come to one short Brand 
besides the Block, which Brand was set up in end; at 
last it fell to pieces, and no Recruit was made: She gave 
me a Glass of Wine. I think I repeated again that I 
would go home and bewail my Rashness in making more 
haste than good Speed. I would endeavour to contain 
myself, and not go on to solHcit her to do that which she 
could not Consent to. Took leave of her. As came down 
the steps she bid me have a Care. Treated me Cour- 
teously. Told her she had enter'd the 4th year of her 
Widowhood. I had given her the News-Letter before; 
I did not bid her draw off her Glove as sometime I had 
done. Her Dress was not so clean as sometime it had 
been. Jehovah jireh ! 

7. The Mathers, a remarkable New England family, pro- 
duced three of the leading thinkers of colonial days. They 
were all ministers, and each attained greater fame than his 
predecessor. Richard Mather (i 596-1669) came to Boston 



The Colonial Epoch 15 

in 1635. His name is associated with the Bay Psalm Book for 
which he wrote the preface. His son, Increase Mather (1639- 
1723), was for fifty-nine years pastor of the old North Church in 
Boston; for sixteen years he was president of Harvard College.* 
But Cotton Mather (1663-1728) was the greatest representa- 
tive of his family in literary and theological colonial New En- 
gland. An old epitaph to this effect runs thus: 

"Under this stone lies Richard Mather 
Who had a son greater than his father, 
And eke a grandson greater than either." 

He has been styled "the literary behemoth of New England," 
and his learning was indeed prodigious. It was said that he 
spent ten hours a day in his study. During his Hfetime he 
published four hundred books. His greatest work is Magnalia 
Christi Americana or The Great Acts of Christ in America. 
The first sentence quoted below sounds the note of the whole. 

(From the Magnalia) 

I write the Wonders of the Christian Religion, fljdng 
from the Depravations of Europe, to the American Strand : 
And, assisted by the Holy Author of that Religion, I do, 
with all Conscience of Truth, required therein by Him, 
who is the Truth it self, report the Wonderful Displays of 
His Infinite Power, Wisdom, Goodness, and Faithfulness, 
wherewith His Divine Providence hath Irradiated an Indian 
Wilderness. 

The Last Days of Increase Mather 

(From Memoirs of Remarkables in the Life and the Death of the Ever- 
Memorable Dr. Increase Mather. 1724) 

Old age came on. But what an one! How bright! 
How wise ! How strong ! And in what an uncommon 
measure serviceable ! He had been an old man while he 
was yet a young man. . . . And now he was an old man 
his pubKc performances had a vigor in them which 'tis 
a rare thing to see a young man have any thing equal to. 



16 American Literature 

Though in the prefaces of the useful books which he 
now published he repeated an ungrantable request unto 
his friends, "no longer to pray for his life," they only 
prayed the more for it. When he had finished forty-nine 
years of his public ministry he preached a sermon full of 
rare and rich thoughts upon "A Jubilee"; and he requested 
for a dismission from any further public labors. His 
flock prized them too much to hear of that; but anon, 
when they saw the proper time for it, that they might 
render his old age as easy as might be to him, they wisely 
and kindly voted it, "That the labors of the pulpit should 
be expected from him only when he should find himself 
able and inclined for them." . . . 

But it is now time for me to tell that after fourscore the 
report of Moses did no longer want confirmation with him. 
He began to be more sensible of those decays which . . . 
caused him several times to say to me: "Be sure, you don't 
pray that you may live beyond fourscore !" . . . 

And now, he that had wished for "sufferings for the 
Lord," must be content with sufferings from the Lord. 
Even these borne with the faith and patience of the saints 
have a sort of martyrdom in them, and will add unto the 
"far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." 

On September 25th, he did with an excellent and pathetic 
prayer, in a mighty auditory, conclude a "day of prayer" 
kept by his church, to obtain a good success of the Gospel 
and the growth of real and vital piety, with plentiful effu- 
sions of the good Spirit, especially upon the "Rising Gen- 
eration." Within two days after this he fell into an 
apoplectic sort of deliquium . . . out of which he recovered 
in a few minutes; but it so enfeebled him, that he never 
went abroad any more. 

However, his "wisdom yet remained with him." 

8. Jonathan Edwards (i 703-1758), a New England preacher 
and missionary to the Indians, was one of the great philoso- 
phers of his age. He wrote a monumental work on the Freedom 
of the Will. He was called to be president of Princeton College 
shortly before his death. Holmes's poem. The Deacon's Mas- 
terpiece, written in 1857, about one hundred years after the 



The Colonial Epoch 17 

death of Edwards, is, says Professor Barrett Wendell, " one of 
the most pitiless satires in our language on Edwards and the 
system of thought for which he stood." 

(From Thoughts on a Thujiderstorm. The personal narrative found 
among his MSS.) 

And as I was walking there, and looking upon the sky and 
clouds, there came into my mind so sweet a sense of the 
glorious majesty and grace of God, as I know not how to 
express. . . . God's excellency, his wisdom, his purity 
and love, seemed to appear in everything: in the sun, moon, 
and stars: in the clouds and blue sky; in the grass, flowers, 
trees; in the water and all nature; which used greatly to 
fix my mind. I often used to sit and view the moon for 
a long time; and in the day spent much time in viewing the 
clouds and sky, to behold the sweet glory of God in these 
things: in the meantime, singing forth, with a low voice, 
my contemplations of the Creator and Redeemer. . . . 
Before, I used to be uncommonly terrified with thunder; 
and to be struck with terror when I saw a thunder-storm 
rising; but now, on the contrary, it rejoiced me. I felt 
God ... at the first appearance of a thunder-storm; and 
used to take the opportunity, at such times, to fix myself in 
order to view the clouds and see the lightnings play, and 
hear the majestic and awful voice of God's thunder. . . . 

(Read Holmes's The Deacon's Masterpiece, infra, pp. 
180-183.) 

9. John Woolman (i 720-1 772) was a New Jersey Quaker 
who left a Journal which is perhaps the only American book 
of the eighteenth century outside of Franklin's Autobiography 
that is still read with pleasure. It was edited by Whittier in 
1 87 1. Charles Lamb said, " Get the writings of John Wool- 
man by heart and love the early Quakers." The following 
extract is typical. 

(From On the Keeping of Slaves) 

If we seriously consider that liberty is the right of inno- 
cent men; that the mighty God is a refuge for the oppressed; 
that in reality we are indebted to them [our slaves]; that 
they being set free are still liable to the penalties of our 



18 American Literature 

laws, and as likely to have punishment for their crimes as 
other people; this may answer all our objections. And to 
retain them in perpetual servitude, without just cause 
for it, will produce effects, in the event, more grievous than 
setting them free would do, when a real love to truth and 
equity was the motive to it. . . . 

There is a principle which is pure placed in the human 
mind, which in different places and ages hath had different 
names; it is, however, pure, and proceeds from God. It 
is deep and inward, confined to no forms of religion, nor 
excluded from any, where the heart stands in perfect sin- 
cerity. In whomsoever this takes root and grows, of what 
nation soever, they become brethren, in the best sense of 
the expression. Using ourselves to take ways which ap- 
pear most easy to us, when inconsistent with that purity 
which is without beginning, we thereby set up a govern- 
ment of our own, and deny obedience to Him whose ser- 
vice is true Hberty. 

He that hath a servant, made so wrongfully, and knows 
it to be so, when he treats him otherwise than a free man, 
when he reaps the benefit of his labor without paying him 
such wages as are reasonably due to free men for the Hke 
service, clothes excepted, these things though done in 
calmness, without any show of disorder, do yet deprave 
the mind in hke manner and with as great certainty as 
prevailing cold congeals water. These steps taken by 
masters, and their conduct striking the minds of their 
children whilst young, leave less room for that which is 
good to work upon them. The customs of their parents, 
their neighbors, and the people with whom they converse, 
working upon their minds, and they, from thence, con- 
ceiving ideas of things and modes of conduct, the entrance 
into their hearts becomes, in a great measure, shut up 
against the gentle movings of uncreated purity. 



Negroes are our fellow-creatures, and their present con- 
dition amongst us requires our serious consideration. We 
know not the time when those scales in which mountains 



The Colonial Epoch 19 

are weighed may turn. The Parent of mankind is gra- 
cious, his care is over his smallest creatures, and a multi- 
tude of men escape not his notice. And though many of 
them are trodden down and despised, yet he remembers 
them; he seeth their affiiction, and looketh upon the spread- 
ing increasing exaltation of the oppressor. He turns the 
channels of power, humbles the most haughty people, and 
gives deHverance to the oppressed at such periods as are 
consistent with his infinite justice and goodness. And 
wherever gain is preferred to equity, and wrong things 
publicly encouraged to that degree that wickedness takes 
root and spreads wide amongst the inhabitants of a coun- 
try, there is real cause for sorrow to all such whose love to 
mankind stands on a true principle and who wisely con- 
sider the end and event of things. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

I. For Further Illustration 

Bradstreet: The Works of Anne Bradstreet in Prose and Verse. 

Edited by John Harvard Ellis, Charlestown, 1867. 
Cairns, W. B.: Selections from Early American Writers. (160^- 

1800.) 
Carpenter, G. R.: American Prose. 

Duyckinck, E. A. and G. L.: Cyclopcedia of American Literature. 
Ford, Paul Leicester: The New England Primer. History of its 

Origin and Development. 
Stedman and Hutchinson: Library of American Literature. (Vols. 

I and II.) 
Trent and Wells: Colonial Prose and Poetry. (Vols. I, II, III.) 
Woolman, John: John Woolman's Journal with Introduction by 

J. G. Whittier. 

II. For the Period 

' Austin, Mrs. J. G. : Standish of Standish. 
Hawthorne, N.: The Scarlet Letter. 
Hemans, Mrs. : The Landing of the Pilgrims. 
Holmes, O. W. : The Deacon's Masterpiece. 

The Broomstick Train. 
Johnston, Mary: To Have and to Hold. 



20 American Literature 

Lamb, Charles: A Quakers^ Meeting. 

Longfellow, H. W.: The Courtship of Miles Standish. 

The Phantom Ship. 
Shore, W. Teignmouth: John Woolman: His Life and Our Times. 
Stimson, F. J.: King Noanett. 
Stowe, H. B.: The Mayflower. 
Whittier, J. G.: The Prophecy of Samuel Sewall. 

The Garrison of Cape Ann. 

(See also General Bibliography, supra, p. 3.) 



CHAPTER II 
THE REVOLUTIONARY ERA 

/. Orations and State Papers 

Most of the writings of the Revolutionary era savored 
of the life of the times. Pamphlets and essays, embodyiiig 
petitions, appeals, or speeches, were the popular form in 
which the literature of the day reflected the political 
struggle of the age. Among the defenders of liberty of the 
Revolutionary and post-Revolutionary periods were James 
Otis, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Patrick 
Henry, Thomas Paine, Alexander Hamilton, and Thomas 
Jefferson. The writings of these men bear no mean com- 
parison with the speeches and political pamphlets of the 
great contemporary English statesmen, Chatham, Fox, and 
Burke. 

I. James Otis (17 2 5-1 783) was a member of the Massa- 
chusetts House of Representatives, and a delegate to the Stamp 
Act Congress in 1765. He is known as the Patrick Henry of 
New England. His argument against Writs of Assistance, de- 
livered before the Superior Court in Boston in 1761, is often 
called the Prologue to the Revolution. John Adams, who 
likened Otis to a flame of fire, said that in this oration Amer- 
ican independence was born. 

In Opposition to Writs of Assistance 

(From Otis's Speech) 

May it please your honors, I was desired by one of the 
court to look unto the books, and consider the question 
21 



'■2'i American Literature 

now before them concerning writs of assistance. I have, 
accordingly, considered it, and now appear not only in 
obedience to your order, but likewise in behalf of the in- 
habitants of this town, who have presented another peti- 
tion, and out of regard to the Hberties of the subject. And 
I take this opportunity to declare that, whether under a 
fee or not (for in such a cause as this I despise a fee) , I will 
to my dying day oppose with all the powers and faculties 
God has given me all such instruments of slavery on the 
one hand, and villainy on the other, as this writ of assist- 
ance is. 

It appears to me the worst instrument of arbitrary 
power, the most destructive of English liberty and the 
fundamental principles of law, that ever was found in an 
Enghsh law book. I must, therefore, beg your honors' 
patience and attention to the whole range of argument 
that may, perhaps, appear uncommon in many things, as 
well as to points of learning that are more remote and 
unusual; that the whole tendency of my design may the 
more easily be perceived, the conclusions better descend, 
and the force of them be better felt. 



Your honors will find in the old books concerning the 
office of a justice of the peace precedents of general war- 
rants to search suspected houses. But in more modern 
books, you will find only special warrants to search such 
and such houses, " specially named, in which the com- 
plainant has before sworn that he suspects his goods are 
concealed; and will find it adjudged that special warrants 
only are legal. In the same manner I rely on it, that the 
writ prayed for in this petition, being general, is illegal. 
It is a power that places the liberty of every man in the 
hands of every petty officer. I say I admit that special 
writs of assistance, to search special places* may be granted 
to certain persons on oath; but I deny that the writ now 
prayed for can be granted, for I beg leave to make some 
observations on the writ itself, before I proceed to other 
Acts of Parliament. 



The Revolutionary Era 23 

In the first place, the writ is universal, being directed 
"to all and singular justices, sheriffs, constables, and all 
other officers and subjects"; so that, in short, it is directed 
to every subject in the king's dominions. Every one with 
this writ may be a tyrant; if this commission be legal, a 
tyrant in a legal manner, also, may control, imprison, or 
murder any one within the realm. 

In the next place, it is perpetual; there is no return. A 
man is accountable to no person for his doings. Every 
man may reign secure in his petty tyranny, and spread 
terror and desolation around him, until the trump of the. 
arch-angel shall excite different emotions in his soul. 

In the third place, a person with this writ, in the daytime, 
may enter all houses, shops, etc., at will, and command all 
to assist him. 

Fourthly, by this writ, not only deputies, etc., but even 
their menial servants, are allowed to lord it over us. What 
is this but to have the curse of Canaan with a witness on 
us; to be the servant of servants, the most despicable of 
Crod's creation? 

Now one of the most essential branches of English Hberty 
is the freedom of one's house. A man's house is his castle; 
and while he is quiet, he is as well guarded as a prince in 
his castle. This writ, if it should be declared legal, would 
totally annihilate this privilege. Custom-house officers 
may enter our houses when they please; we are commanded 
to permit their entry. Their menial servants may enter, 
may break locks, bars, and everything in their way; and 
whether they break through malice or revenge, no man, no 
court can inquire. Bare suspicion without oath is suffi- 
cient. This wanton exercise of this power is not a chi- 
merical suggestion of a heated brain. 

I will mention some facts. Mr. Pew had one of these 
writs, and when Mr. Ware succeeded him, he indorsed 
this writ over to Mr. Ware; so that these writs are nego- 
tiable from one officer to another, and so your honors have 
no opportunity of judging the persons to whom this vast 
power is delegated. Another instance is this: Mr. Jus- 
tice Walley had called this same Mr. Ware before him, 



24 American Literature ~ 

by a constable, to answer for a breach of the Sabbath Day 
Acts, or that of profane swearing. As soon as he had 
finished, Mr. Ware asked him if he had done. He replied : 
"Yes." "Well, then," said Mr. Ware, "I will show you 
a httle of my power. I command you to permit me to 
search your house for uncustomed goods"; and went on 
to search the house from the garret to the cellar, and then 
served the constable in the same manner ! But to show 
another absurdity in this writ, if it should be estabhshed, 
I insist upon it that every person, by the 14th of Charles 
n., has this power as well as the custom-house ofl&cers. 
The words are: "It shall be lawful for any person or persons 
authorized," etc. What a scene does this open ! Every 
man prompted by revenge, ill humor, or wantonness, to 
inspect the inside of his neighbor's house, may get a writ 
of assistance. Others will ask it from self-defense; one 
arbitrary exertion will provoke another, until society be 
involved in tumult and in blood. 



(Here the report of the speech ends. The rest was 
afterward written up by John Adams.) 

2. Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), " the sage, statesman, 
and scientist," next to Washington, was the greatest American 
of the eighteenth century. His signature is found on four 
celebrated American documents, the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence, the Treaty of Alliance with France, the Treaty of Peace 
with England, and the Constitution. His best literary product, 
however, was not of a political nature. He first became widely 
known through his wise saws which appeared in Poor Richard's 
Almanac, published annually for a quarter of a century, from 
1733 on. Franklin spent his nights and days studying Addi- 
son in order to improve his literary style and the effect of this 
study is much in evidence in his Autobiography, which is the 
most readable book published in America during the eighteenth 
century. 

(Since Franklin's best literary product was not of a political 
nature, a passage from his Autobiography is added to the ex- 
tract which places him here.) 



The Revolutionary Era 25 



On the Federal Constitution 

(From a speech delivered in Philadelphia before the Constitu- 
tional Convention of 1787) 

I confess that I do not entirely approve of this Constitu- 
tion at present; but, sir, I am not sure I shall never ap- 
prove of it, for, having Uved long, I have experienced 
many instances of being obhged, by better information 
or fuller consideration, to change opinions, even on impor- 
tant subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be 
otherwise. It is therefore that, the older I grow, the 
more apt I am to doubt my own judgment of others. 
Most men, indeed, as well as most sects in rehgion, think 
themselves in possession of all truth, and that wherever 
others dififer from them, it is so far error. Steele, a Protes- 
tant, in a dedication, tells the pope that the only difference 
between our two churches in their opinions of the certainty 
of their doctrines is, the Romish Church is infallible, and 
the Church of England is never in the wrong. But, tho 
many private persons think almost as highly of their own 
infallibility as of that of their sect, few express it so nat- 
urally as a certain French lady, who, in a Httle dispute 
with her sister, said: "But I meet with nobody but myself 
that is always in the right." 



It . . . astonishes me, sir, to find this system approach- 
ing so near to perfection as it does; and I think it will 
astonish our enemies, who are waiting with confidence to 
hear that our counsels are confounded Kke those of the 
builders of Babel, and that our States are on the point of 
separation, only to meet hereafter for the purpose of cut- 
ting one another's throats. Thus I consent, sir, to this 
Constitution, because I expect no better, and because I 
am not sure that it is not the best. The opinions I have 
had of its errors I sacrifice to the public good. I have 
never whispered a syllable of them abroad. Within these 
walls they were born, and here they shall die. If every 



26 American Literature 

one of us, in returning to our constituents, were to report 
the objections he has had to it, and endeavor to gain par- 
tizans in support of them, we might prevent its being gen- 
erally received and thereby lose all the salutary effects 
and great advantages resulting naturally in our favor 
among foreign nations, as well as among ourselves, from 
our real or apparent unanimity. Much of the strength 
and efficiency of any government, in procuring and se- 
curing happiness to the people, depends on opinion, on the 
general opinion of the goodness of that government, as 
well as of the wisdom and integrity of its governors. I 
hope, therefore, for our own sakes, as a part of the people, 
and for the sake of our posterity, that we shall act heartily 
and unanimously in recommending this Constitution 
wherever our influence may extend, and turn our future 
thoughts and endeavors to the means of having it well 
administered. 

On the whole, sir, I can not help expressing a wish that 
every member of the convention who may still have ob- 
jections to it, would, with me, on this occasion, doubt a 
little of his own infalHbility, and, to make manifest our 
unanimity, put his name to this instrument. 



Learning to Write 

(From FranklWs Autobiography) 

There was another bookish lad in town, John Collins by 
name, with whom I was intimately acquainted. We 
sometimes disputed, and very fond we were of argument, 
and very desirous of confuting one another, which dispu- 
tatious turn, by the way, is apt to become a very bad 
habit, making people often extremely disagreeable in com- 
pany by the contradiction that is necessary to bring it 
into practice; and thence, besides souring and spoiling 
the conversation, is productive of disgusts, and perhaps 
enmities where you may have occasion for friendship. I 
had caught it by reading my father's books of dispute 
about religion. Persons of good sense, I have since ob- 



The Revolutionary Era 27 

served, seldom fall into it, except lawyers, university 
men, and men of all sorts that have been bred at Edin- 
borough. 



About this time I met with an odd volume of the Spec- 
tator. It was the third. I had never before seen any of 
them. I bought it, read it over and over, and was much 
delighted with it. I thought the writing excellent, and 
wished if possible, to imitate it. With this view I took 
some of the papers, and, making short hints of the senti- 
ment in each sentence, laid them by a few days, and then, 
without looking at the book, try'd to compleat the papers 
again, by expressing each hinted sentiment at length, and 
as fully as it had been expressed before, in any suitable 
words that should come to hand. Then I compared my 
Spectator with the original, discovered some of my faults, 
and corrected them. But I found I wanted a stock of 
words, or a readiness in recollecting and using them, which 
I thought I should have acquired before that time if I had 
gone on making verses; since the continual occasion for 
words of the same import, but of different length, to suit 
the measure, or of different sound for the rhyme, would 
have laid me under a constant necessity of searching for 
variety, and also have tended to fix that variety in my mind, 
and make me master of it. Therefore I took some of the 
tales and turned them into verse; and, after a time, when I 
had pretty well forgotten the prose, turned them back 
again. I also sometimes jumbled my collections of hints 
into confusion, and after some weeks endeavored to reduce 
them into the best order, before I began to form the full 
sentences and compleat the paper. This was to teach me 
method in the arrangement of thoughts. By comparing 
my work afterwards with the original, I discovered many 
faults and amended them; but I sometimes had the plea- 
sure of fancying that, in certain particulars of small import, 
I had been lucky enough to improve the method or the 
language, and this encouraged me to think I might possibly 
in time come to be a tolerable English writer, of which I 



28 American Literature 

was extreamly ambitious. My time for these exercises and 
for reading was at night, after work or before it began in 
the morning, or on Sunday's, when I contrived to be in 
the printing-house alone, evading as much as I could the 
common attendance on public worsliip which my father 
used to exact of me when I was under his care, and which 
indeed I still thought a duty, though I could not, as it 
seemed to me, afford time to practise it. 

3. George Washington (173 2-1 799), Commander-in-Chief 
of the American Revolutionary^ forces and first President of 
the United States, wrote some remarkable state papers. No 
narrative of the histor}^ of American literature is complete 
without recognition of the lofty tone and noble eloquence of his 
Farewell Address, an extract of which follows. 

(From Washington's Farewell Address) 

The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign 
Nations, is, in extending our commercial relations, to have 
with them as little Political connection as possible. So 
far as we have already formed engagements, let them be 
fulfilled %\ith perfect good faith. Here let us stop. 

Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us have 
none, or a very remote relation. Hence she must be en- 
gaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are 
essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it 
must be unwdse in us to implicate ourselves, by artificial 
ties, in the ordinary \'icissitudes of her poUtics, or the 
ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships 
or enmities. 

Our detached and distant situation in\'ites and enables 
us to pursue a different course. If we remain one People, 
under an efficient government, the period is not far off, 
when we may defy material injury from external annoy- 
ance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause 
the neutrality, we may at any time resolve upon, to be 
scrupulously respected; when belUgerent nations, under 
the impossibiUty of making acquisitions upon us, will not 
lightly hazard the gi\'ing us provocation; when we may 



The Revolutionary Era 29 

choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, 
shall counsel. 

Why forego the advantages of so pecuhar a situation? 
Why quit our owti to stand upon foreign ground? WTiy, 
by interwea\ing our destiny w^th that of any part of 
Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of 
European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice? 

'Tis our true pohcy to steer clear of permanent alliances 
with any portion of the foreign world; so far, I mean, as 
we are now at Hberty to do it; for let me not be imder- 
stood as capable of patronizing infidehty to existing en- 
gagements. I hold the maxim no less appUcable to pub- 
lic than to private afifairs. that honesty is always the best 
policy. I repeat it, therefore, let those engagements be 
observed in their genuine sense. But, in my opinion, it 
is unnecessary and would be unwise to extend them. 

Taking care always to keep ourselves, by suitable es- 
tablishments, on a respectably defensive posture, we may 
safely trust to temporary alliances for extraordinary emer- 
gencies. 



In ofifering to you, my Countrymen, these counsels of 
an old and affectionate friend. I dare not hope they will 
make the strong and lasting impression I could wish; 
that they will control the usual current of the passions, or 
prevent our Nation from running the course, which has 
hitherto marked the destiny of Nations. But, if I may 
even flatter myself, that they may be productive of some 
partial benefit, some occasional good; that they may now 
and then recur to moderate the fury of party spirit, to 
warn against the mischiefs of foreign intrigue, to guard 
against the impostures of pretended patriotism; this hope 
will be a full recompense for the solicitude for your welfare, 
by which they have been dictated. 

How far in the discharge of my ofl5cial duties, I have 
been guided by the principles which have been delineated, 
the public Records and other e\ddences of my conduct 
must witness to You and to the World. To myself, the 



30 American Literature 

assurance of my own conscience is, that I have at least 
believed myself to be guided by them. 

Though, in reviewing the incidents of my Administra- 
tion, I am unconscious of intentional error, I am never- 
theless too sensible of my defects not to think it proba- 
ble that I may have committed many errors. Whatever 
they may be I fervently beseech the Almighty to avert or 
mitigate the evils to which they may tend. I shall also 
carry with me the hope, that my country will never cease 
to view them with indulgence; and that, after forty-five 
years of my life dedicated to its service with an upright 
zeal, the faults of incompetent abihties will be consigned 
to oblivion, as myself must soon be to the mansions of rest. 

Relying on its kindness in this as in other things, and 
actuated by that fervent love towards it, which is so nat- 
ural to a man, who views in it the native soil of himself 
and his progenitors for several generations; I anticipate 
with pleasing expectation that retreat, in which I promise 
myself to reahze, without alloy, the sweet enjoyment of 
partaking, in the midst of my fellow-citizens, the benign 
influence of good Laws under a free Government, the ever 
favorite object of my heart, and the happy reward, as I 
trust, of our mutual cares, labors, and dangers. 

G°. Washington. 

United States, 19 September, 1796. 

4. Patrick Henry (i 736-1 799), member of the First Con- 
tinental Congress in 1774, twice Governor of Virginia, and 
member of the convention which ratified the Constitution in 
1788, was America's most eloquent orator. Jefferson said: 
" He appeared to me to speak as Homer wrote." His speech 
before the Virginia Assembly March 23, 1775, ranks as one of 
the greatest American orations. 

(From the speech delivered before the Virginia Assembly, March 
23, 1775, often called the "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death" 
speech) 

. The question before the House is one of awful moment 
to this country. For my own part, I consider it as nothing 



The Revolutionary Era 31 

less than a question of freedom or slavery; and in propor- 
tion to the magnitude of the subject ought to be the free- 
dom of the debate. It is only in this way that we can 
hope to arrive at truth, and fulfil the great responsibility 
which we hold to God and our country. Should I keep 
back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving 
offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason 
toward my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the 
Majesty of Heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings. 

Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge in the 
illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a 
painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren, till she 
transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, 
engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty ? Are 
we disposed to be of the number of those, who, having 
eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which 
so nearly concern their temporal salvation ? For my part, 
whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to 
know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide 
for it. 

I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and 
that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of 
judging of the future but by the past. And judging by 
the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct 
of the British ministry for the last ten years to justify 
those hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to 
solace themselves and the House. Is it that insidious 
smile with which our petition has been lately received? 
Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer 
not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves 
how this gracious reception of our petition comports with 
those warlike preparations which cover our waters and 
darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a 
work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown our- 
selves so unwilling to be reconciled that force must be 
called in to win back our love? Let us not deceive our- 
selves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjuga- 
tion; the last arguments to which kings resort. 

I ask gentlemen, sir, what means this martial array, if 



32 American Literature 

its purpose be not to force us to submission? Can gen- 
tlemen assign any other possible motive for it? Has 
Great Britain any enemy in this quarter of the world to 
call for all this accumulation of navies and armies ? No, sir, 
she has none. They are meant for us: they can be meant 
for no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon 
us those chains which the British ministry have been so 
long forging. And what have we to oppose to them? 
Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that 
for the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer 
upon the subject? Nothing. We have held the subject 
up in every light of which it is capable; but it has been all 



In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope 
of peace and reconcihation. There is no longer any room 
for hope. If we wish to be free — if we mean to preserve 
inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have 
been so long contending — if we mean not basely to abandon 
the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, 
and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon, 
until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained — 
we must fight ! I repeat it, sir, we must fight ! An appeal 
to arms and to the God of Hosts is all that is left us ! 



Three millions of people armed in the holy cause of 
Hberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, 
are invincible by any force which our enemy can send 
against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles 
alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies 
of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our bat- 
tles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; 
it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, 
we have no election. If we were base enough to desire 
it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is 
no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains 
are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains 



The Revolutionary Era 33 

of Boston! The war is inevitable — and let it come! I 
repeat it, sir, let it come ! 

It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen 
may cry, Peace, Peace — but there is no peace. The war 
is actually begun I The next gale that sweeps from the 
north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms ! 
Our brethren are already in the field ! Why stand we here 
idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would 
they have? Is Hfe so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be 
purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, 
Almighty God ! I know not what course others may take; 
but as for me, give me Hberty or give me death ! 

5. Thomas Paine (1737-1809) was an Englishman who came 
to America in 1774 and espoused the cause of liberty. It has 
been said that his pamphlet Common Sense was worth an army 
of 20,000 men to the Americans. In the first number of The 
Crisis, a series of tracts published in defence of independence, 
he' wrote the famous sentence that has since become a proverb: 
"These are the times that try men's souls." 

The Day of Freedom 

(From The Crisis, No. i, 1776) 

These are the times that try men's souls. The summer 
soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink 
from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, 
deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyr- 
anny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this 
consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more 
glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we 
esteem too lightly; 'tis dearness only that gives every- 
thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price 
upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed, if so 
celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated. 
Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared 
that she has a right (not only to tax) but "to bind us in 
all cases whatsoever," and if being bound in that manner 
is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery 



34 American Literature 

upon earth. Even the expression is impious, for so un- 
limited a power can belong only to God. . . . 

I have as little superstition in me as any man living, 
but my secret opinion has ever been, and still is, that God 
Almighty will not give up a people to military destruction, 
or leave them, unsupportedly to perish, who have so ear- 
nestly and so repeatedly sought to avoid the calamities 
of war, by every decent method which wisdom could 
invent. Neither have I so much of the infidel in me, as 
to suppose that He has relinquished the government of 
the world, and given us up to the care of devils; and as I 
do not, I cannot see on what grounds the king of Britain 
can look up to heaven for help against us: a common mur- 
derer, a highwayman, or a house-breaker has as good a 
pretence as he. . . . 

The heart that feels not now, is dead: the blood of his 
children will curse his cowardice, who shrinks back at a 
time when a Httle might have saved the whole, and made 
them happy. I love the man that can smile in trouble, 
that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by 
reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but 
he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his 
conduct, will pursue his principles unto death. My own 
line of reasoning is to myself as straight and clear as a ray 
of light. Not all the treasures of the world, so far as I 
believe, could have induced me to support an offensive 
war, for I think it murder; but if a thief breaks into my 
house, burns and destroys my property, and kills or threat- 
ens to kill me, or those that are in it, and to "bind me in 
all cases whatsoever" to his absolute will, am I to suffer it? 
What signifies it to me, whether he who does it is a king 
or a common man: my countryman or not my countryman; 
whether it be done by an individual villain, or an army 
of them ? If we reason to the root of things we shall find 
no difference; neither can any just cause be assigned why 
we should punish in the one case and pardon in the other. 

6. Alexander Hamilton (i 757-1804) was instrumental in 
shaping the Constitution of the United States, which is described 



The Revolutionary Era 35 

by Gladstone_as " the most wonderful work ever struck off at a 
given £ime by the brain and purpose of man." While Secre- 
tary of Treasury under Washington, he established the financial 
system of the United States. He was chief author (the others 
were John Jay and James Madison) of The Federalist, a series of 
pohtical essays expounding the principles of government. This 
collection ranks high among our state papers. 

(From the speech delivered June 24, 1788, in the New York Conven- 
tion, called to ratify the Constitution of the United States) 

Gentlemen in their reasoning have placed the interests 
of the several States and those of the United States in 
contrast; this is not a fair view of the subject: they must 
necessarily be involved in each other. What we appre- 
hend is that some sinister prejudice or some prevailing 
passion may assume the form of a genuine interest. The 
influence of these is as powerful as the most permanent 
conviction of the public good, and against this influence 
we ought to provide. The local interests of a State ought 
in every case to give way to the interests of the Union; 
for when a sacrifice of one or the other is necessary, the 
former becomes only an apparent, partial interest, and 
should yield on the principle that the small good ought 
never to oppose the great one. When you assemble from 
your several counties in the Legislature, were every mem- 
ber to be guided only by the apparent interests of his 
county, government would be impracticable. There must 
be a perpetual accommodation and sacrifice of local ad- 
vantages to general expediency; but the spirit of a mere 
popular assembly would rarely be actuated by this impor- 
tant principle. It is therefore absolutely necessary that 
the Senate should be so formed as to be unbiased by false 
conceptions of the real interests or undue attachment to 
the apparent good of their several States. 

Every member must have been struck with an observa- 
tion of a gentleman from Albany. Do what you will, says 
he, local prejudices and opinions will go into the govern- 
ment. What ! shall we then form a Constitution to cherish 



'56 American Literature 

and strengthen these prejudices? Shall we confirm the 
distemper instead of remedying it? It is undeniable that 
there must be a control somewhere. Either the general 
interest is to control the particular interests, or the con- 
trary. If the former, then certainly the government ought 
to be so framed as to render the power of control efficient 
to all intents and purposes; if the latter, a striking ab- 
surdity follows; the controlling powers must be as numer- 
ous as the varying interests, and the operations of the 
government must therefore cease; for the moment you 
accommodate these different interests, which is the only 
way to set the government in motion, you establish a con- 
trolling power. Thus, whatever constitutional provisions 
are made to the contrary, every government will be at 
last driven to the necessity of subjecting the partial to the 
universal interest. The gentlemen ought always in their 
reasoning to distinguish between the real, genuine good of 
a State and the opinions and prejudices which may prevail 
respecting it; the latter may be opposed to the general 
good, and consequently ought to be sacrificed; the former 
is so involved in it that it never can be sacrificed. 



With regard to the jurisdiction of the two governments 
I shall certainly admit that the Constitution ought to be 
so formed as not to prevent the States from providing for 
their own existence; and I maintain that it is so formed, 
and that their power of providing for themselves is suf- 
ficiently established. This is conceded by one gentleman, 
and in the next breath the concession is retracted. He 
says Congress has but one exclusive right in taxation — 
that of duties on imports; certainly, then, their other 
powers are only concurrent. But to take ofT the force of 
this obvious conclusion, he immediately says that the laws 
of the United States are supreme and that where there is 
one supreme there can not be a concurrent authority; and 
further, that where the laws of the Union are supreme those 
of the States must be subordinate, because there can not 
be two supremes. This is curious sophistry. That two 



The Revolutionary Era 37 

supreme powers can not act together is false. They are 
inconsistent only when they are aimed at each other or at 
one indivisible object. The laws of the United States are 
supreme as to all their proper constitutional objects; the 
laws of the States are supreme in the same way. These 
supreme laws may act on different objects without clash- 
ing, or they may operate on different parts of the same 
common object with perfect harmony. Suppose both 
governments should lay a tax of a penny on a certain ar- 
ticle; has not each an independent and uncontrollable 
power to collect its own tax ? The meaning of the maxim, 
there can not be two supremes, is simply this — two powers 
can not be supreme over each other. This meaning is 
entirely perverted by the gentlemen. Biit, it is said, dis- 
putes between collectors are to be referred to the Federal 
courts. This is again wandering in the field of conjecture. 
But suppose the fact is certain, is it not to be presumed 
that they will express the true meaning of the Constitu- 
tion and the laws? Will they not be bound to consider 
the concurrent jurisdiction; to declare that both the taxes 
shall have equal operation; that both the powers, in that 
respect, are sovereign and coextensive? If they transgress 
their duty we are to hope that they will be punished. Sir, 
we can reason from probabilities alone. When we leave 
common sense and give ourselves up to conjecture, there 
can be no certainty, no security in our reasonings. 



7. Thomas Jefferson (i 743-1826) was successively Gover- 
nor of Virginia, Minister to France, Secretary of State, Vice- 
President, and President of the United States. ' He was the 
chief author of the Declaration of Independence, which Pro- 
fessor Tyler calls " a kind of war-song." 

(From Jefferson's First Inaugural Address) 

(It is said that this was delivered without pomp or cere- 
mony, March 4, 1801. Jefiferson went to the Capitol on 
horseback, tied his horse to a fence, walked into the Senate 
Chamber, and made his speech.) 



38 American Literature 

About to enter, fellow citizens, on the exercise of duties 
which comprehend everything dear and valuable to you, 
it is proper you should understand what I deem the essen- 
tial principles of our government, and consequently those 
which ought to shape its administration. I will compress 
them within the narrowest compass they will bear, stat- 
ing the general principle, but not all its limitations. Equal 
and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or per- 
suasion, rehgious or political; peace, commerce, and 
honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances 
with none; the support of the State governments in all 
their rights, as the most competent administrations for 
our domestic concerns, and the surest bulwarks against 
anti-repubhcan tendencies; the preservation of the general 
government in its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet- 
anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad; a jealous 
care of the right of election by the people; a mild and safe 
corrective of abuses which are lopped by the sword of 
revolution, where peaceable remedies are unprovided; ab- 
solute acquiescence in the decisions of the majority, the 
vital principle of republics, from which is no appeal but to 
force, the vital principle and immediate parent of despot- 
ism; a well-disciplined mihtia, our best reliance in peace 
and for the first moments of war, till regulars may relieve 
them; the supremacy of the civil over the military au- 
thority; economy in the public expense, that labor may 
be lightly burdened; the honest payment of our debts, 
and sacred preservation of the public faith; encourage- 
ment of agriculture, and of commerce as its handmaid; the 
diffusion of information and arraignment of all abuses at 
the bar of the public reason; freedom of religion, freedom 
of the Press, and freedom of person, under the protection 
of the Habeas Corpus; and trial by juries impartially 
selected. 

These principles form the bright constellation which has 
gone before us, and guided our steps through an age of 
revolution and reformation. The wisdom of our sages 
and blood of our heroes have been devoted to their attain- 
ment; they should be the creed of our political faith, the 



The Revolutionary Era 39 

text of civic instruction, the touchstone by which to try 
the services of those we trust; and should we wander from 
them in moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to 
retrace our steps and to regain the road which alone leads 
to peace, Hberty, and safety. . . . 

Relying, then, on the patronage of your good will, I 
advance with obedience to the work, ready to retire from 
it whenever you become sensible how much better choices 
it is in your power to make. And may that Infinite Power 
which rules the destinies of the universe lead our councils 
to what is best, and give them a favorable issue for your 
peace and prosperity. 

The Character of Washington 
(From Jefferson's Correspondence. To Doctor Walter Jones) 

I think I knew General Washington intimately and 
thoroughly, and were I called on to dehneate his character, 
it should be in terms like these: 

His mind was great and powerful, without being of the 
very first order; his penetration strong, though not so 
acute as that of a Newton, Bacon, or Locke; and as far 
as he saw, no judgment was ever sounder. It was slow in 
operation, being little aided by invention or imagination, 
but sure in conclusion. Hence the common remark of 
his ofl&cers, of the advantage he derived from councils of 
war, where, hearing all suggestions, he selected whatever 
was best; and certainly no General ever planned his bat- 
tles more judiciously. But if deranged during the course 
of the action, if any member of his plan was dislocated by 
sudden circumstances, he was slow in re-adjustment. The 
consequence was, that he often failed in the field, and 
rarely against an enemy in station, as at Boston and 
York. He was incapable of fear, meeting personal dangers 
with the calmest unconcern. Perhaps the strongest fea- 
ture in his character was prudence, never acting until 
every circumstance, every consideration, was maturely 
weighed; refraining if he saw a doubt, but, when once 
decided, going through with his purpose, whatever ob- 



40 American Literature 

stacles opposed. His integrity was most pure, his jus- 
tice the most inflexible I have ever known, no motives of 
interest or consanguinity, of friendship or hatred, being 
able to bias his decision. He was, indeed, in every sense 
of the words, a wise, a good, and a great man. His tem- 
per was naturally irritable and high toned; but reflection 
and resolution had obtained a firm and habitual ascen- 
dency over it. If ever, however, it broke its bonds, he 
was most tremendous in his wrath. . . . His heart was 
not warm in its affections; but he exactly calculated every 
man's value, and gave him a solid esteem proportioned to 
it. His person, you know, was fine, his stature exactly 
what one could wish, his deportment easy, erect, and 
noble; the best horseman of his age, and the most graceful 
figure that could be seen on horseback. ... In pubHc, 
when called on for a sudden opinion, he was unready, short, 
and embarrassed. Yet he wrote readily, rather diffusely, 
in an easy and correct style. This he had acquired by 
conversation with the world, for his education was merely 
reading, writing and common arithmetic, to which he added 
surveying at a later day. 

His time was employed in action chiefly, reading little, 
and that only in agriculture and English history. His 
correspondence became necessarily extensive, and with 
journalizing his agricultural proceedings, occupied most 
of his leisure hours within-doors. 

On the whole, his character was, in its mass, perfect, in 
nothing bad, in few points indifferent; and it may truly 
be said that never did nature and fortune combine more 
perfectly to make a man great, and to place him in the 
same constellation with whatever worthies have merited 
from man an everlasting remembrance. 

(Compare this with Webster's Character of Washington, 
infra, p. 8i.) 

//. Songs and Ballads 

The stirring events of the times called forth numerous 
war songs and ballads. Perhaps the most famous ballads 



The Revolutionary Era 41 

of the day were the merry Battle of the Kegs, by Francis 
Hopkinson (1737-1791); Hail Columbia, written in 1798 by 
Joseph Hopkinson (1770-1842), son of Francis; and The 
Ballad of Nathan Hale, composed in memory of Nathan 
Hale, who was captured and hanged by the British as a spy. 

8. Francis Hopkinson. 

(This ballad was occasioned by a real incident. Certain ma- 
chines, in the form of kegs, charged with gunpowder, were sent 
down the river to annoy the British shipping then at Philadel- 
phia. The danger of these machines being discovered, the 
British manned the wharfs and shipping, and discharged their 
small arms and cannons at everything they saw floating in the 
river during the ebb-tide. — Author's note.) 

The Battle of the Kegs 

Gallants attend and hear a friend 

Trill forth harmonious ditty, 
Strange things I'll tell which late befel 

In Philadelphia City. 

'Twas early day, as poets say. 

Just when the sun was rising, 
A soldier stood on a log of wood, 

And saw a thing surprising. 

As in amaze he stood to gaze. 

The truth can't be denied, sir, 
He spied a score of kegs or more 

Come floating down the tide, sir. 

A sailor, too, in jerkin blue, 

This strange appearance viewing. 

First damn'd his eyes, in great surprise. 
Then said, " Some mischief's brewing. 

'•' These kegs, I'm told, the rebels hold, 
Pack'd up Hke pickHng herring; 

And they're come down t' attack the town, 
In this new way of ferrying." 



42 Ajnerican Literature 

The soldier flew, the sailor too, 
And scar'd almost to death, sir. 

Wore out their shoes, to spread the news, 
And ran till out of breath, sir, 

Now up and down throughout the town, 
Most frantic scenes were acted; 

And some ran here, and others there, 
Like men almost distracted. 

Some fire cri'd, which some denied, 
But said the earth had quaked; 

And girls and boys with hideous noise, 
Ran through the street half-naked. 

Sir William he, snug as a flea. 
Lay all this time a-snoring. 

Nor dreamed of harm as he lay warm. 
Neither did Mrs. Loring. 

Now in a fright he starts upright, 
Awak'd by such a clatter; 

He rubs both eyes, and boldly cries, 
" For God's sake, what's the matter? " 

At his bed-side he then espied. 
Sir Erskine at command, sir, 

Upon one foot he had one boot, 
And th' other in his hand, sir. 

"Arise, arise ! " Sir Erskine cries, 
" The rebels — more's the pity, 

Without a boat are all afloat. 
And ranged before the city. 

"The motley crew, in vessels new, 
With Satan for their guide, sir. 

Packed up in bags, or wooden kegs. 
Come driving down the tide, sir. 



The Revolutionary Era 43 

"Therefore prepare for bloody war 

The kegs must all be routed, 
Or surely we despised shall be, 

And British courage doubted." 



The kegs, 'tis said, tho' strongly made 
Of rebel staves and hoops, sir, 

Could not oppose their powerful foes, 
And conquering British troops, sir. 

From morn to night these men of might 
Display'd amazing courage; 

And when the sun was fairly down, 
Retir'd to sup their porrage. 

An hundred men with each a pen, 
Or more upon my word, sir. 

It is most true would be too few, 
Their valor to record, sir. 

Such feats did they perform that day, 
Against these wick'd kegs, sir, 

That, years to come, if they get home 
They'll make their boast and brags, sir. 

9. Joseph HopMnson. 

Hail Columbia 

Hail, Columbia ! happy land ! 
Hail, ye heroes ! heaven-born band ! 

Who fought and bled in Freedom's cause, 

Who fought and bled in Freedom's cause, 
And when the storm of war was gone 
Enjoyed the peace your valor won. 

Let independence be our boast 

Ever mindful what it cost; 

Ever grateful for the prize, 

Let its altar reach the skies. 



44 Americaii Literature 

Firm, united, let us be, 
Rallying round our Liberty; 
As a band of brothers joined. 
Peace and safety we shall find. 

Immortal patriots! rise once more: 
Defend your rights, defend your shore: 
Let no rude foe, with impious hand, 
Let no rude foe, with impious hand, 
Invade the shrine where sacred lies 
Of toil and blood the well-earned prize. 
While offering peace sincere and just, 
In Heaven we place a manly trust, 
That truth and justice will prevail, 
And every scheme of bondage fail. 

Firm, united, etc. 

Sound, sound the trump of Fame ! 

Let Washington's great name 

Ring through the world with loud applause, 
Ring through the world vdth. loud applause, 

Let every clime to Freedom dear, 

Listen with a joyful ear. 

With equal skill and godlike power, 
He governed in the fearful hour 
Of horrid war; or guides, with ease. 
The happier times of honest peace. 

Firm, united, etc. 

Behold the chief who now commands. 
Once more to serve his country, stands — 
The rock on which the storm will beat. 
The rock on which the storm will beat; 
But, armed in virtue firm and true. 
His hopes are fixed on Heaven and you. 
When hope was sinking in dismay. 
And glooms obscured Columbia's day, 
His steady mind, from changes free, 
Resolved on death or liberty. 



The Revoluticmary Era 45 

Firm, united, let us be, 
Rallying round our Li?jerty; 
As a band of brothers joined, 
Peace and safety we shall find. 

lo. Author Unknown, 

(Professor Simonds calls this " a wonderfully tender and im- 
pressive tribute to the memory of Nathan Hale."; 

The Ballad of Nathan Hale 

The breezes went steadily through the tall pines, 
A-saying, "oh I hu-ush !" a-saying "oh I hu-ush !" 
As stilly stole by a bold legion of horse, 
For Hale in the bush, for Hale in the bush. 

"Keep still I" said the thrush as she nestled her young, 
In a nest by the road ; in a nest by the road. 
"For the tyrants are near, and with them appear 
WTiat bodes us no good, what bodes us no good." 

The brave captain heard it, and thought of his home 
In a cot by the brook; in a cot by the brook. 
With mother and sister and memories dear, 
He so gayly forsook, he so gayly forsook. 

Cooling shades of the night were coming apace. 
The tattoo had beat; the tattoo had beat. 
The noble one sprang from his dark lurking-place, 
To make his retreat, to make his retreat. 

He warily trod on the dry rustling leaves, 

As he passed through the wood; as he passed through the 

wood ; 
And silently gained his rude launch on the shore, 
As she played with the flood, as she played with the flood. 

The guards of the camp on that dark, drear>' night, 
Had a murderous will; had a murderous will; 
They took him and bore him afar from the shore, 
To a hut on the hill; to a hut on the hiU. 



46 American Literature 

No mother was there, nor a friend who could cheer, 
In that Httle stone cell; in that Uttle stone cell. 
But he trusted in love, from his Father above. 
In his heart all was well; in his heart all was well. 

An ominous owl, with his solemn bass voice. 
Sat moaning hard by; sat moaning hard by: 
" The tyrant's proud minions most gladly rejoice, 
For he must soon die; for he must soon die." 

The brave fellow told them, no thing he restrained, — 
The cruel general ! the cruel general ! — 
His errand from camp, of the ends to be gained. 
And said that was all; and said that was all. 

They took him and bound him and bore him away, 
Down the hill's grassy side; down the hill's grassy side. 
'Twas there the base hireUngs, in royal array, 
jffis cause did deride; his cause did deride. 

Five minutes were given, short moments, no more, 
For him to repent; for him to repent. 
He prayed for his mother, he asked not another. 
To Heaven he went; to Heaven he went. 

The faith of a martyr the tragedy showed, 
As he trod the last stage; as he trod the last stage. 
And Britons will shudder at gallant Hale's blood, 
As his words do presage ; as his words do presage. 

"Thou pale king of terrors, thou life's gloomy foe. 
Go frighten the slave; go frighten the slave; 
Tell tyrants, to you their allegiance they owe. 
No fears for the brave; no fears for the brave." 

Prominent among the Revolutionary poets were John 
Trumbull, Joel Barlow, and Timothy Dwight, all three of 
them Yale men. They belonged to a group of Hterary men 
known as the "Hartford Wits." 



The Revolutionary Era 47 

II. John Trumbull (i 750-1831), the best known of the 
"Hartford Wits," wrote many poems, the most ambitious 
being McFingal, a mock heroic epic modelled on Butler's Hudi- 
bras. It depicts the troubles of a Tory squire surrounded 
by patriotic Americans. This was the most famous political 
satire of the Revolution. An extract follows. 



McFingal to the Whigs 

(From McFingal, Canto II) 

Your boasted patriotism is scarce, 

And country's love is but a farce: 

For after all the proofs you bring, 

We Tories know there's no such thing. 

Hath not Dalrymple show'd in print. 

And Johnson too, there's nothing in 't; 

Produced you demonstration ample, 

From others' and their own example, 

That self is still, in either faction, 

The only principle of action; 

The loadstone, whose attracting tether 

Keeps the politic world together: 

And spite of all your double dealing, 

We all are sure 'tis so, from feeling. 

And who believes you will not run ? 

Ye're cowards, every mother's son; 

And if you offer to deny. 

We've witnesses to prove it by. 

Attend th' opinion first, as referee. 

Of your old general, stout Sir Jeffrey; 

Who swore that with five thousand foot 

He'd rout you all, and in pursuit 

Run thro' the land, as easily 

As camel thro' a needle's eye. 

Did not the mighty Colonel Grant 

Against your courage pour his rant, 

Affirm your universal failure 

In every principle of valour, 

And swear no scamperers e'er could match you, 



48 Americafi Literature 

So swift, a bullet scarce could catch you? 
And will you not confess, in this 
A judge most competent he is; 
Well skiird on running to decide. 
As what himself has often tried ? 

Have you not roused, his force to tn- on, 
That grim old beast the British Lion; 
And know you not. that at a sup 
He"s large enough to eat you up? 

Britain, depend on 't. will take on her 
T' assert her dignity and honor. 
And ere she'd lose your share of pelf, 
Destroy your country, and herself. 
For has not North declared they fight 
To gain substantial rev'nue by 't 
Denied he'd ever deign to treat, 
TiU on your knees and at his feet? 

A TniE-WoRN Belle 

(From Th<' Progress of DuJmss) 
Poor Harriet now hath had her day; 
Xo more the beaux confess her sway; 
Xew beauties push her from the stage; 
She trembles at th' approach of age, 
And starts to \-iew the alter'd face, 
That wrinkles at her in her glass: 
So Satan, in the monk's tradition, 
Fear'd when he met his apparition. 
At length her name each coxcomb cancels 
From standing lists of toasts and angels; 
And slighted where she shone before, 
A grace and goddess now no more. 
Despised by all. and doom'd to meet 
Her lovers at her ri\*al's feet. 
She flies assemblies, shuns the ball, 
And cries out, \-anity, on all; 



TJie Revolutionary Era 49 

Affects to scorn the tinsel-shows 

Of glittering belles and gaudy beaxix; 

Nor longer hopes to hide by dress 

The tracks of age upon her face. 

Now careless grown of airs polite, 

Her noonday nightcap meets the sight; 

Her hair uncomb'd collects together. 

With ornaments of many a feather; 

Her stays for easiness thrown by, 

Her rumpled handkerchief awry, 

A careless figure half undress'd 

(The reader's wits may guess the rest) ; 

All points of dress and neatness carried, 

As though she'd been a twelvemonth married; 

She spends her breath, as years prevail. 

At this sad wicked world to rail, 

To slander all her sex impromptu. 

And wonder -what the times will come to. 

12. Joel Barlow (1754-1812) wrote a long epic in serious 

vein, The Columhiwi, but is remembered to-day for the humor- 
ous poem The Hasty Pudding, which he dedicated to Martha 
Washington. 

(From The Hasty Pudding. A Poem in Three Cantos. Written 
at Chambery, in Savoy, January, 1793. New Haven, 1796) 

He makes a good breakfast who mixes pudding with molasses. 

T« Mrs. Washington 

Madam: — A simplicity in diet, whether it be considered with 
reference to the happiness of individuals or the prosperity of a 
nation, is of more consequence than we are apt to imagine. In 
recommending so great and necessar}- a \irtue to the rational 
part of mankind, I wish it were in my power to do it in such a 
manner as would be likely to gain their attention. I am sen- 
sible that it is one of those subjects in which example has in- 
finitely more power than the most con\-incing argimients, or 
the highest charms of poetry. Goldsmith's Deserted Village , 
though possessing these two advantages in a greater degree 
than any other work of the kind, has not pre\,'ented \-illages in 
England from being deserted. The apparent interest of the 



50 American Litei-ature 

rich individuals, who form the taste as well as the laws in that 
countn,', has been against him; and with that interest it has been 
vain to contend. 

The vicious habits which in this little piece I endeavor to 
combat, seem to me not so difficult to cure. No class of peo- 
ple has any interest in supporting them, unless it be the interest 
which certain families may feel in vying with each other in 
sumptuous entertainments. There may indeed be some in- 
stances of depraved appetites which no arguments will conquer; 
but these must be rare. There are very few persons but would 
always prefer a plain dish for themselves, and would prefer it 
likewise for their guests, if there were no risk of reputation in the 
case. This difficulty can only be removed by example; and the 
example should proceed from those whose situation enables 
them to take the lead in forming the manners of a nation. 
Persons of this description in America, I should hope, are 
neither above nor below the influence of truth and reason when 
conveyed in language suited to the subject. 

WTiether the manner I have chosen to address my arguments 
to them be such as to promise any success, is what I cannot 
decide. But I certainly had hopes of doing some good, or I 
should not have taken the pains of putting so many rhymes 
together; and much less should I have ventured to place 
your name at the head of these observations. 

Your situation commands the respect and your character 
the affections of a numerous people. These circumstances 
impose a duty upon you, which I believe you discharge to your 
own satisfaction and that of others. The example of your 
domestic virtues has doubtless a great effect among your coun- 
trywomen. I only wish to rank simplicity of diet among the 
\-irtues. In that case it will certainly be cherished by you and 
I should hope more esteemed by others than it is at present. 

The Author. 

The H.\sty Pudding— Canto I 

Ye Alps audacious, through the heavens that rise. 

To cramp the day and hide me from the skies; 
Ye Gallic flags, that o'er their heights unfurled. 
Bear death to kings, and freedom to the world, 
I sing not you. A softer theme I choose, 
A \-irgin theme, unconscious of the Muse, 



The Revolutionary Era 51 

But fruitful, rich, well suited to inspire 
The purest frenzy of poetic fire. 

Despise it not, ye bards to terror steel'd 
Who hurl your thunders round the epic field; 
Nor ye who strain your midnight throats to sing 
Joys that the vineyard and the still-house bring; 
Or on some distant fair your notes employ, 
And speak of raptures that you ne'er enjoy. 
I sing the sweets I know, the charms I feel. 
My morning incense, and my evening meal. 
The sweets of Hasty Pudding. Come, dear bowl, 
Glide o'er my palate, and inspire my soul. 
The milk beside thee, smoking from the kine, 
Its substance mingle, married in with thine, 
Shall cool and temper thy superior heat, 
And save the pains of blowing while I eat. 

Oh ! could the smooth, the emblematic song 
Flow like thy genial juices o'er my tongue, 
Could those mild morsels in my numbers chime, 
And, as they roll in substance, roll in rhyme, 
No more thy awkward unpoetic name 
Should shun the muse, or prejudice thy fame; 
But rising grateful to the accustom'd ear, 
All bards should catch it, and all realms revere ! 

13. Timothy Dwight (1752-1817), the grandson of Jonathan 
Edwards, was at one time President of Yale College. One 
of his well-remembered songs follows. 

Psalm CXXXVII 
(From Dwight's revision of Watts's Psalms) 

I love thy kingdom. Lord, 

The house of thine abode. 
The church, our blest Redeemer sav'd 

With his own precious blood. 

I love thy church, O God ! 
Her walls before thee stand, 



52 American Literature 

Dear as the apple of thine eye, 
And graven on thy hand. 

If e'er to bless thy sons 

My voice, or hands, deny, 
These hands let useful skill forsake, 

This voice in silence die. 

For her my tears shall fall, 

For her my prayers ascend; 
To her my cares and toils be given 

Till toils and cares shall end. 

Beyond my highest joy 

I prize her heavenly ways. 
Her sweet communion, solemn vows, 

Her hymns of love and praise. 

Jesus, thou friend divine, 

Our Saviour and our King, 
Thy hand from every snare and foe 

Shall great deliverance bring. 

Sure as thy truth shall last. 

To Zion shall be given 
The brightest glories earth can yield. 

And brighter bhss of heaven. 

III. Other Literary Records 

This period is interesting from the purely literary view- 
point as being an era of beginnings. At this time we dis- 
cover both the first American poet and the first American 
novelist. Philip Freneau, in such poems as The Wild 
Honeysuckle, is decidedly the forerunner of Bryant; and 
Charles Brockden Brown, the father of American fiction, 
is the herald of Poe. Here, too, we find the beginnings 
of the American drama. In April, 1767, The Prince of 



The Revolutionary Era 53 

Parthia, a tragedy written by Thomas Godfrey, a young 
American author, was performed at the Southwark Theatre, 
Philadelphia. Hugh H. Brackenridge in 1776 wrote a 
play called The Battle of Bunker Hill. He was then a 
school-teacher, and the play was presented by his pupils. 
Afterward he became a Judge of the Supreme Court of 
Pennsylvania. The first American play to be produced 
by a professional company was The Contrast, a comedy of 
American life compared to English. It was written by 
Royall Tyler and performed in New York, April 16, 1787. 

14. Philip Freneau (1752-1832) was born in New York 
City and educated at Princeton. During the Revolution he 
was captured by the British and spent some time on a prison 
ship. He wrote much that is of slight literary worth, but a 
few lyrics that reveal the true poet, as, for instance. The Wild 
Honeysuckle and On a Honey Bee Drinking from a Glass of 
Wine, both of which are given below. 

The Wild Honeysuckle 

Fair flower, that dost so comely grow. 

Hid in this silent, dull retreat. 
Untouched thy honied blossoms blow, 
Unseen thy little branches greet: 
No roving foot shall crush thee here. 
No busy hand provoke a tear. 

By Nature's self in white arrayed. 

She bade thee shun the vulgar eye. 
And planted here the guardian shade, 
And sent soft waters murmuring by; 
Thus quietly thy summer goes, 
Thy days declining to repose. 

Smit with those charms, that must decay, 

I grieve to see your future doom; 
They died — nor were those flowers more gay. 



54 American Literature 

The flowers that did in Eden bloom; 
Unpitying frosts and Autumn's power, 
Shall leave no vestige of this flower. 

From morning suns and evening dews 

At first thy little being came; 
If nothing once, you nothing lose, 
For when you die you are the same; 
The space between is but an hour, 
The frail duration of a flower. 



On a Honey Bee Drinking from a Glass of Wine and 
Drowned Therein 

Thou, born to sip the lake or spring, 
Or quaff the waters of the stream. 
Why hither come on vagrant wing? — 
Does Bacchus tempting seem — 
Did he, for you, this glass prepare? — 
Will I admit you to a share ? 

Did storms harass or foes perplex. 
Did wasps or king-birds bring dismay — 
Did wars distress, or labours vex, 
Or did you miss your way ?— 
A better seat you could not take 
Than on the margin of this lake. 

Welcome ! — I hail you to my glass : 
All welcome, here, you find; 
Here let the cloud of trouble pass, 
Here, be all care resigned. — 
This fluid never fails to please. 
And drown the griefs of men or bees. 

What forced you here we cannot know, 
And you will scarcely tell — 
But cheery we would have you go 
And bid a glad farewefl; 



The Revolutionary Era 55 

On lighter wings we bid you fly, 
Your dart will now all foes defy. 

Yet take not, oh ! too deep to drink, 

And in this ocean die; 

Here bigger bees than you might sink, 

Even bees full six feet high. 

Like Pharaoh, then, you would be said 

To perish in a sea of red. 

Do as you please, your will is mine; 

Enjoy it without fear — 

And your grave will be this glass of wine, 

Your epitaph— a tear — 

Go, take your seat in Charon's boat, 

We'll tell the hive, you died afloat. 

15. Charles Brockden Brown (1771-1810) was born in 
Philadelphia but spent most of his life in New York. He made 
literature the business of his life ; in fact, he was the first Amer- 
ican to adopt letters as a profession. His first story, Wieland, 
was immediately successful. There is a touch of both realism 
and weirdness in his tales. Embedded in his long rambling 
romances are many short stories, but he lacked the genius to 
crystallize them into artistic form. 

The Yellow Fever in Philadelphia 

(From Arthur Merwyn) 

In proportion as I drew near the city, the tokens of its 
calamitous condition became more apparent. Every farm- 
house was filled with supernumerary tenants, fugitives 
from home, and haunting the skirts of the road, eager to 
detain every passenger with inquiries after news. The 
passengers were numerous; for the tide of emigration was 
by no means exhausted. Some were on foot, bearing in 
their countenances the tokens of their recent terror, and 
filled with mournful reflections on the forlornness of their 
state. Few had secured to themselves an asylum; some 
were without the means of paying for victuals or lodgings 



56 American Literature 

for the coming night; others, who were not thus destitute, 
yet knew not whither to apply for entertainment, every 
house being already overstocked with inhabitants, or bar- 
ring its inhospitable doors at their approach. . . . 

Between these and the fugitives whom curiosity had led 
to the road, dialogues frequently took place, to which I was 
suffered to listen. From every mouth the tale of sorrow 
was repeated with new aggravations. Pictures of their 
own distress, or of that of their neighbors, were exhibited 
in all the hues which imagination can annex to pestilence 
and poverty. . . . My frequent pauses to listen to the nar- 
ratives of travellers contributed ... to procrastination. 
The sun had nearly set before I reached the precincts of 
the city. I pursued the track which I had formerly taken, 
and entered High Street after nightfall. 

Instead of equipages and a throng of passengers, the 
voice of levity and glee, which I had formerly observed, and 
which the mildness of the season would, at other times, 
have produced, I found nothing but a dreary solitude. 

The market place, and each side of this magnificent 
avenue, were illuminated, as before, by lamps; but between 
the verge of Schuylkill and the heart of the city I met 
not more than a dozen figures; and these were ghost-like, 
wrapped in cloaks, from behind which they cast upon me 
glances of wonder and suspicion, and as I approached, 
changed their course, to avoid touching me. Their clothes 
were sprinkled with vinegar and their nostrils defended 
from contagion by some powerful perfume. 

I cast a look upon the houses, which I recollected to have 
formerly been, at this hour, brilliant with lights, resound- 
ing with lively voices, and thronged with busy faces. Now 
they were closed, above and below; dark, and without 
tokens of being inhabited. From the upper windows of 
some, a gleam sometimes fell upon the pavement I was 
traversing, and showed that their tenants had not fled, 
but were secluded or disabled 

These tokens were new, and awakened all my panics. 
Death seemed to hover over this scene, and I dreaded that 
the floating pestilence had already lighted on my frame. 



The Revolutionary Era 51 

I had scarcely overcome these tremors, when I approached 
a house, the door of which was opened, and before which 
stood a vehicle, which I presently recognized to be a hearse. 

The driver was seated on it. I stood still to mark his 
visage, and to observe the course which he proposed to 
take. Presently a coffin, borne by two men, issued from 
the house. The driver was a negro; but his companions 
were white. Their features were marked by ferocious in- 
difference to danger or pity. One of them, as he assisted 
in thrusting the coffin into the cavity provided for it, 
said, ... "It wasn't the fever that ailed him, but the sight 
of the girl and her mother on the floor ... it wasn't 
right to put him in his coffin before the breath was fairly 
gone. I thought the last look he gave me told me to stay 
a few minutes." 

"Pshaw! He could not live" [said the other]. "The 
sooner dead the better for him; as well as for us. Do you 
mark how he eyed us when we carried away his wife and 
daughter? I never cried in my Hfe, since I was knee- 
high, but curse me, if I ever felt in better tune for the 
business than just then. Hey!" continued he, looking up, 
and observing me standing a few paces distant, and listen- 
ing to their discourse; "what's wanted? Anybody dead?" 

I stayed not to answer or parley, but hurried forward. 
My joints trembled, and cold drops stood on my forehead. 
I was ashamed of my own infirmity; and, by vigorous 
efforts of my reason, regained some degree of composure. 
The evening had now advanced, and it behooved me to 
procure accommodation at some of the inns. ... 

I proceeded, in a considerable degree at random. At 
length I reached a spacious building in Fourth Street, 
which the sign-post showed me to be an inn. I knocked 
loudly and oftpn at the door. At length a female opened 
the window o^ the second story, and, in a tone of peevish- 
ness, demanded what I wanted. I told her that I wanted 
lodging. 

"Go hunt for it somewhere else," said she; "you'll find 
none here." I began to expostulate; but she shut the win- 
dow with quickness and left me to my own reflections. . . . 



58 American Literature 

i6. Royall Tyler (1757-1826), a Vermont jurist, was our 
first successful playwright. He wrote many dramas, the most 
popular of which was The Contrast, an extract from which is 
given below. 

The First American Comedy Regularly Produced 

(the contrast, a comedy in five acts: written by a 
citizen of the united states — performed in 1 787, 
at the theatre in john street, new york — 179o.) 

(From The Advertisement) 

In justice to the Author it may be proper to observe that this 
Comedy has many claims to the public indulgence, independent 
of its intrinsic merits: It is the first essay of American genius 
in a difficult species of composition; it was written by one who 
never critically studied the rules of the drama, and, indeed, had 
seen but few of the exhibitions of the stage; it was undertaken 
and finished in the course of three weeks; and the profits of 
one night's performance were appropriated to the benefit of 
the sufferers by the fire at Boston. 

Prologue, In Rebuke Of The Prevailing Anglomania 

Exult each patriot heart ! — this night is shown 

A piece, which we may fairly call our own; 

Where the proud titles of "My Lord ! Your Grace !" 

To humble "Mr." and plain "Sir" give place. 

Our author pictures not from foreign climes 

The fashions, or the follies of the times; 

But has confined the subject of his work 

To the gay scenes — the circles of New York. 

On native themes his Muse displays her powers; 

If ours the faults, the virtues too are ours. 

Why should our thoughts to distant countries roam, 

When each refinement can be found at home ? 

Who travels now to ape the rich or great, 

To deck an equipage and roll in state; 

To court the graces, or to dance with ease, — 

Or by hypocrisy to strive to please ? 

Our free-born ancestors such arts despised; 



The Revolutionary Era 59 

Genuine sincerity alone they prized ; 

Their minds with honest emulation fired, 

To solid good — not ornament — aspired ; 

Or, if ambition roused a bolder flame, 

Stern virtue throve, where indolence was shame. 

But modern youths, with imitative sense, 
Deem taste in dress the proof of excellence ; 
And spurn the meanness of your homespun arts. 
Since homespun habits would obscure their parts; 
Whilst all, which aims at splendor and parade. 
Must come from Europe, and be ready-made. 
Strange we should thus our native worth disclaim, 
And check the progress of our rising fame. 
Yet one, whilst imitation bears the sway. 
Aspires to nobler heights, and points the way. 
Be roused, my friends ! his bold example view; 
Let your own bards be proud to copy you ! 
Should rigid critics reprobate our play. 
At least the patriotic heart will say, 
"Glorious our fall, since in a noble cause; 
The bold attempt alone demands applause." 
Still may the wisdom of the Comic Muse 
Exalt your merits, or your faults accuse. 
But think not 'tis her aim to be severe; — 
We all are mortals, and as mortals err. 
If candor pleases, we are truly blest; 
Vice trembles, when compelled to stand confessed. 
Let not light censure on your faults offend. 
Which aims not to expose them, but amend. 
Thus does our author to your candor trust; 
Conscious the free are generous, as just. 

IV. A Literary Anomaly 

17. Phillis Wheatley Peters, a negro girl brought from 
Africa at the age of eight, became a slave in a Boston family. 
She was very precocious, learned easily, and began early to 
write verses imitating the English poets of the eighteenth cen- 
tury. A volume of her poems was published in 1773. They 
show little creative talent but ready imitative ability. 



American Literature 



To The Right Honorable William, Earl of 
Dartmouth 

Hail, happy day, when, smiling like the morn, 
Fair Freedom rose New England to adorn ! 
The northern clime beneath her genial ray, 
Dartmouth, congratulates thy blissful sway: 
Elate with hope her race no longer mourns, 
Each soul expands, each grateful bosom burns, 
While in thine hand with pleasure we behold, 
The silken reins, and Freedom's charms unfold. 
Long lost to realms beneath the northern skies 
She shines supreme, while hated Faction dies. 
Soon as appeared the Goddess long desired, 
Sick at the view, she languished and expired; 
Thus from the splendors of the morning light 
The owl in sadness seeks the caves of night. 

No more, America, in mournful strain, 

Of wrongs, and grievance unredressed complain; 

No longer shalt thou dread the iron chain. 

Which wanton Tyranny with lawless hand 

Had made, and with it meant to enslave the land. 

Should you, my lord, while you peruse my song. 
Wonder from whence my love of Freedom sprung. 
Whence flow these wishes for the common good, 
By feehng hearts alone best understood, 
I, young in life, by seeming cruel fate 
Was snatched from Afric's fancied happy seat: 
What pangs excruciating must molest. 
What sorrows labor in my parents' breast ! 
Steeled was that soul and by no misery moved 
That from a father seized his babe beloved : 
Such, such my case. And can I then but pray 
Others may never feel tyrannic sway ? 



The Revolutionary Era (6^ 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

I. For Further Illustration 

Orations and State Papers 

Brewer, D. J.: The World's Best Orations. 

Bryan, W. J.: The World's Famous Orations. (Vol. VIII.) 

Cairns, W. B.: Selections from Early American Writers. 1607- 
1800. 

Carpenter, G. R.: American Prose. 

Depew, C. M.: The Library of Oratory. (Vol. III.) 

Duyckinck, E. A. and G. L.: Cyclopedia of American Liter- 
ature. 

Moore, F.: American Eloquence. 

Stedman and Hutchinson: Library of American Literature. 
(Vols. II, III, IV.) 

Songs and Ballads 

Long, A. W.: American Poems. 1776-1Q00. 

Matthews, B.: Poems of American Patriotism. 

Moore, F.: Songs and Ballads of the American Revolution. 

Stedman and Hutchinson: Library of American Literature. 

(Vol. III.) 
Stevenson, Burton E.: Poems of American History. 

Other Literary Records 

Carpenter, G. R.: American Prose. 

Duyckinck, E. A. and G. L.: Cyclopcsdia of American Litera- 
ture. 

Stedman, E. C: An American Anthology. 

Stedman and Hutchinson: Library of American Literature. 
(Vols. Ill and IV.) 

II. For the Period 

Churchill, Winston: Richard Carvel. 
Cooper, J. F.: The Spy. 

The Pilot. 
Emerson, R. W. : Concord Hymn. 
Ford, Paul Leicester: Janice Meredith. 
Johnston, Mary: Lewis Rand. 



62 American Literature 

Longfellow, H. W. : Paul Revere's Ride. 
Mitchell, S. Weir: Hugh Wynne. 
Pierpont, John: Warren's Address. 

Trumbull, James H.: The Origin of McFingal. In Stedman and 
Hutchinson, vol. VII. 

(See also General Bibliography, supra, p. 3.) 



PART II 
THE NATIONAL PERIOD 

CHAPTER III 

THE EARLY WRITERS 

I. Great Names 

With the close of the Revolution, the adoption of the 
Constitution, and the launching of the ship of state Amer- 
ica came to a realization of self and began to exhibit that 
self in literary as well as political activity. Our authors 
for the first time wrote as Americans, our contribution to 
the world of literature from now on was a distinctive prod- 
uct, the creation of a new people. 

I. "Washington Irving (i 783-1859), the "Father of Amer- 
ican Letters," was the first American writer to achieve inter- 
national fame. He spent many years abroad, was Secretary 
to the American legation in London and afterward Minister 
to Spain. In 1830 he was awarded one of the two medals 
given annually by the Royal Society of Literature to authors 
of distinguished merit. Oxford conferred upon him the degree 
of D.C.L. He wrote under the pseudonyms of Diedrich Knicker- 
bocker, Jonathan Oldstyle, and Geoffrey Crayon. His Knicker- 
bocker History of New York is considered a masterpiece of 
American humor. Irving's best work is to be found in his 
sketches. His home, Sunnyside at Tarrytown on the Hudson, 
is sometimes spoken of as the Abbotsford of America because 
its popularity with tourists is about as great as that of the 
home of Sir Walter Scott. 

63 



04 American Literature 

The Adventure of My Aunt 

(From Tales of a Traveller) 

My aunt was a lady of large frame, strong mind, and 
great resolution: she was what might be termed a very 
manly woman. My uncle was a thin, puny Httle man, 
very meek and acquiescent, and no match for my aunt. 
It was observed that he dwindled and dwindled gradually 
away, from the day of his marriage. His wife's powerful 
mind was too much for him; it wore him out. My aunt, 
however, took all possible care of him; had half the doc- 
tors in town to prescribe for him; made him take all their 
prescriptions, and dosed him with physic enough to cure 
a whole hospital. All was in vain. My uncle grew worse 
and worse the more dosing and nursing he underwent, 
until in the end he added another to the long Hst of matri- 
monial victims who have been killed with kindness. 

"And was it his ghost that appeared to her?" asked the 
inquisitive gentleman, who had questioned the former 
story-teller. 

"You shall hear," replied the narrator. — My aunt took 
on mightily for the death of her poor husband. Perhaps 
she felt some compunction at having given him so much 
physic, and nursed him into the grave. At any rate, she 
did all that a widow could do to honor his memory. She 
spared no expense in either the quantity or quality of 
her mourning weeds; wore a miniature of him about her 
neck as large as a Httle sun-dial, and had a full length por- 
trait of him always hanging in her bed-chamber. All the 
world extolled her conduct to the skies; and it was deter- 
mined that a woman who behaved so well to the memory 
of one husband deserved soon to get another. 

It was not long after this that she went to take up her 
residence in an old country-seat in Derbyshire, which had 
long been in the care of merely a steward and a house- 
keeper. She took most of her servants with her, intending 
to make it her principal abode. The house stood in a 
lonely, wild part of the country, among the gray Derby- 



The Early Writers 65 

shire hills, with a murderer hanging in chains on a bleak 
height in full view. 

The servants from town were half frightened out of their 
wits at the idea of living in such a dismal, pagan-looking 
place; especially when they got together in the servants' 
hall in the evening, and compared notes on all the hob- 
goblin stories picked up in the course of the day. They 
were afraid to venture alone about the gloomy, black look- 
ing chambers. My lady's maid, who was troubled with 
nerves, declared she could never sleep alone in such a 
"gashly rummaging old building"; and the footman, who 
was a kind-hearted young fellow, did all in his power to 
cheer her up. 

My aunt was struck with the lonely appearance of the 
house. Before going to bed, therefore, she examined well 
the fastnesses of the doors and windows; locked up the 
plate with her own hands, and carried the keys, together 
with a Httle box of money and jewels, to her own room; 
for she was a notable woman, and always saw to all things 
herself. Having put the keys under her pillow, and dis- 
missed her maid, she sat by her toilet, arranging her hair; 
for being, in spite of her grief for my uncle, rather a buxom 
widow, she was somewhat particular about her person. 
She sat for a little while looking at her face in the glass, 
first on one side, then on the other, as ladies are apt to do 
when they would ascertain whether they have been in good 
looks; for a roistering country squire of the neighborhood, 
with whom she had flirted when a girl, had called that 
day to welcome her to the country. 

All of a sudden she thought she heard something move 
behind her. She looked hastily round, but there was 
nothing to be seen, — nothing but the grimly painted por- 
trait of her poor dear man, hanging against the wall. 

She gave a heavy sigh to his memory, as she was accus- 
tomed to do whenever she spoke of him in company, and 
then went on adjusting her night-dress, and thinking of 
the squire. Her sigh was reechoed, or answered, by a 
long-drawn breath. She looked round again, but no one 
was to be seen. She ascribed these sounds to the wind 



66 American Literature 

oozing through the rat-holes of the old mansion, and pro- 
ceeded leisurely to put her hair in papers, when, all at once, 
she thought she perceived one of the eyes of the portrait 
move. 

**The back of her head being towards it !" said the story- 
teller with the ruined head, — "good !" 

"Yes, sir!" replied dryly the narrator, "her back being 
towards the portrait, but her eyes fixed on its reflection 
in the glass."— Well, as I was saying, she perceived one of 
the eyes of the portrait move. So strange a circumstance, 
as you may well suppose, gave her a sudden shock. To 
assure herself of the fact, she put one hand to her forehead 
as if rubbing it; peeped through the fingers, and moved 
the candle with the other hand. The light of the taper 
gleamed on the eye, and was reflected from it. She was 
sure it moved. Nay, more, it seemed to give her a wink, 
as she had sometimes known her husband to do when living ! 
It struck a momentary chill to her heart; for she was a 
lone woman, and felt herself fearfully situated. 

The chill was but transient. My aunt, who was almost 
as resolute a personage as your uncle, sir, (turning to the 
old story-teller,) became instantly calm and collected. She 
went on adjusting her dress. She even hummed an air, 
and did not make even a single false note. She casually 
overturned a dressing-box; took a candle and picked up 
the articles one by one from the floor; pursued a rolUng 
pin-cushion that was making the best of its way under 
the bed; then opened the door; looked for an instant into 
the corridor, as if in doubt whether to go; and then walked 
quietly out. 

She hastened down-stairs, ordered the servants to arm 
themselves with the weapons first at hand, placed herself 
at their head, and returned almost immediately. 

Her hastily levied army presented a formidable force. 
The steward had a rusty blunder-buss, the coachman a 
loaded whip, the footman a pair of horse-pistols, the cook 
a huge chopping-knife, and the butler a bottle in each 
hand. My aunt led the van with a red-hot poker, and in 
my opinion she was the most formidable of the party. 



The Early WHUrs 67 

The waiting-maid, who dreaded to stay alone in the ser- 
vants' hall, brought up the rear, smelHng at a broken 
bottle of volatile salts, and expressing her terror of the 
ghostesses. "Ghosts!" said my aunt, resolutely. "I'll 
singe their whiskers for them !" 

They entered the chamber. All was still and undis- 
turbed as when she had left it. They approached the 
portrait of my uncle. 

"Pull down that picture!" cried my aunt. A heavy 
groan, and a sound like the chattering of teeth, issued' 
from the portrait. The servants shrunk back; the maid 
uttered a faint shriek, and clung to the footman for sup- 
port. 

"Instantly !" added my aunt, with a stamp of the foot. 

The picture was pulled down, and from a recess behind it, 
in which had formerly stood a clock, they hauled forth a 
round-shouldered, black-bearded varlet, with a knife as long 
as my arm, but trembling all over Hke an aspen-leaf. 

"Well, and who was he? No ghost, I suppose," said 
the inquisitive gentleman. 

"A Knight of the Post," replied the narrator, "who had 
been smitten with the worth of the wealthy widow; or 
rather a marauding Tarquin, who had stolen into her 
chamber to violate her purse, and rifle her strong box, 
when all the house should be asleep. In plain terms," 
continued he, "the vagabond was a loose idle fellow of 
the neighborhood, who had once been a servant in the 
house, and had been employed to assist in arranging it 
for the reception of its mistress. He confessed that he 
had contrived this hiding-place for his nefarious purpose, 
and had borrowed an eye from the portrait by way of a 
reconnoitring-hole. ' ' 

"And what did they do with him? — did they hang 
him?" resumed the questioner. 

"Hang him! — how could they?" exclaimed a beetle- 
browed barrister, with a hawk's nose. "The offence was 
not capital. No robbery, no assault had been committed. 
No forcible entry or breaking into the premises " 

"My aunt," said the narrator, "was a woman of spirit, 



68 American Literature 

and apt to take the law in her own hands. She had her 
own notions of cleanUness also. She ordered the fellow 
to be drawn through the horse-pond, to cleanse away all 
offenses, and then to be well rubbed down with an oaken 
towel." 

"And what became of him afterwards?" said the in- 
quisitive gentleman. 

''I do not exactly know. I beheve he was sent on a 
voyage of improvement to Botany Bay." 

"And your aunt," said the inquisitive gentleman; "I'll 
warrant she took care to make her maid sleep in the room 
with her after that." 

"No, sir, she did better; she gave her hand shortly 
after to the roistering squire; for she used to observe, that 
it was a dismal thing for a woman to sleep alone in the 
country." 

She was right," observed the inquisitive gentleman, 
nodding sagaciously; "but I am sorry they did not hang 
that fellow." . . . 

The Mysterious Chambers 

(From The Alhambra) 

As I was rambling one day about the Moorish halls, 
my attention was, for the first time, attracted to a door 
in a remote gallery, communicating apparently with some 
part of the Alhambra which I had not yet explored. I 
attempted to open it, but it was locked. I knocked, but 
no one answered, and the sound seemed to reverberate 
through empty chambers. Here then was a mystery. 
Here was the haunted wing of the castle. How was I to 
get at the dark secrets here shut up from the pubUc eye? 
Should I come privately at night with lamp and sword, 
according to the prying custom of heroes of romance; or 
should I endeavor to draw the secret from Pepe the stut- 
tering gardener; or the ingenuous Dolores, or the loqua- 
cious Mateo ? Or should I go frankly and openly to Dame 
Antonia the chatelaine, and ask her all about it ? I chose 
the latter course, as being the simplest though the least 



The Early Writers 69 

romantic; and found, somewhat to my disappointment, 
that there was no mystery in the case. I was welcome to 
explore the apartment, and there was the key. 



When I returned to my quarters, in the governor's 
apartment, everything seemed tame and common-place 
after the poetic region I had left. The thought suggested 
itself: Why could I not change my quarters to these 
vacant chambers? that would indeed be Hving in the Al- 
hambra, surrounded by its gardens and fountains, as in 
the time of the Moorish sovereigns. I proposed the change 
to Dame Antonia and her family, and it occasioned vast 
surprise. They could not conceive any rational induce- 
ment for the choice of an apartment so forlorn, remote, and 
solitary. ... I was not to be diverted from my humor, 
however, and my will was law with these good people. 
So, calling in the assistance of a carpenter, and the ever 
officious Mateo Ximenes, the doors and windows were soon 
placed in a state of tolerable security, and the sleeping- 
room . . . prepared for my reception. Mateo kindly vol- 
unteered as a body-guard to sleep in my antechamber; but 
I did not think it worth while to put his valor to the proof. 

With all the hardihood I had assumed and all the pre- 
cautions I had taken, I must confess the first night passed 
in these quarters was inexpressibly dreary. I do not 
think it was so much the apprehension of dangers from 
without that affected me, as the character of the place 
itself, with all its strange associations: the deeds of vio- 
lence committed there; the tragical ends of many of those 
who had once reigned there in splendor. . . . 

The whole family escorted me to my chamber, and took 
leave of me as of one engaged on a perilous enterprise ; and 
when I heard their retreating steps die away along the 
waste antechambers and echoing galleries; and turned the 
key of my door, I was reminded of those hobgobHn stories, 
where the hero is left to accomplish the adventure of an 
enchanted house. 



70 American Literature 

In the course of a few evenings a thorough change took 
place in the scene and its associations. The moon, which 
when I took possession of my new apartments was invis- 
ible, gradually gained each evening upon the darkness of 
the night, and at length rolled in full splendor above the 
towers, pouring a flood of tempered light into every court 
and hall. The garden beneath my window, before wrapped 
in gloom, was gently lighted up, the orange and citron 
trees were tipped with silver; the fountain sparkled in 
the moonbeams, and even the blush of the rose was faintly 
visible. 

I now felt the poetic merit of the Arabic inscription on 
the walls: ''How beauteous is this garden; where the 
flowers of the earth vie with the stars of heaven. What 
can compare with the vase of yon alabaster fountain filled 
with crystal water? nothing but the moon in her fulness, 
shining in the midst of an unclouded sky !" 

On such heavenly nights I would sit for hours at my 
window inhaling the sweetness of the garden, and musing 
on the checkered fortunes of those whose history was dimly 
shadowed out in the elegant memorials around. Some- 
times, when all was quiet, and the clock from the distant 
cathedral of Granada struck the midnight hour, I have 
sailed out on another tour and wandered over the whole 
building; but how different from my first tour! . . . 

Who can do justice to a moonlight night in such a climate 
and such a place ? The temperature of a summer midnight 
in Andalusia is perfectly ethereal. We seem lifted up into 
a purer atmosphere; we feel a serenity of soul, a buoyancy 
of spirits, an elasticity of frame, which render mere exis- 
tence happiness. But when moonlight is added to all this, 
the effect is like enchantment. Under its plastic sway 
the Alhambra seems to regain its pristine glories. Every 
rent and chasm of time; every mouldering tint and weather- 
stain is gone; the marble resumes its original whiteness; 
the long colonnades brighten in the moonbeams; the halls 
are illuminated with a softened radiance, — we tread the 
enchanted palace of an Arabian tale ! 

What a delight, at such a time, to ascend to the little 



The Early Writers 71 

airy pavilion of the queen's toilet . . . which, like a bird- 
cage, overhangs the valley of the Darro, and gaze from its 
light arcades upon the moonlight prospect ! To the right, 
the swelling mountains of the Sierra Nevada, robbed of 
their ruggedness and softened into a fairy land, with their 
snowy summits gleaming hke silver clouds against the deep 
blue sky. And then to lean over the parapet of the Tocador 
and gaze down upon the Granada and the Albaycin spread 
out like a map below; all buried in deep repose; the white 
palaces and convents sleeping in the moonshine, and beyond 
all these the vapory Vega fading away like a dreamland in 
the distance. 

Sometimes the faint cHck of castanets rises from the 
Alameda, where some gay Andalusians are dancing away 
the summer night. Sometimes the dubious tones of a 
guitar and the notes of an amorous voice, tell perchance 
the whereabouts of some moonstruck lover serenading 
his lady's window. 

Such is a faint picture of the moonlight nights I have 
passed loitering about the courts and halls and balconies 
of this most suggestive pile, "feeding my fancy with 
sugared suppositions," and enjoying that mixture of 
reverie and sensation which steals away existence in a 
southern climate; so that it has been almost morning be- 
fore I have retired to bed and been lulled to sleep by the 
falUng waters of the fountain of Lindaraxa. 

2. James Fenimore Cooper (i 789-1851) is often called the 
American Scott. He gave us the historical novel based on 
American history just as Scott gave us the historical novel based 
on English history. He really stumbled into the profession of 
literature. One day as he finished reading a cheap English 
society novel he exclaimed, " I could do better myself!" He 
was challenged to do so, and the result was his first book. Pre- 
caution, a story of English life. It occurred to Cooper that if 
he could write a story of some worth describing life little known 
to him he might write tales of greater merit describing life well 
known to him; and so the next year gives us The Spy. By 
this time he had found himself. Through the following years 
he wrote the Leather Stocking Tales and the Sea Tales, one of 



72 American Literature 

which, The Pilot, was the first salt-water novel ever written 
and is, says Professor Brander Matthews, "to this day one 
of the best." It is hoped the following extract will stimu- 
late the student to a complete reading of one of Cooper's tales. 

Hawkeye, Chingachgook, and Uncas 
(From The Last of the Mohicans, chapter III) 

On that day, two men were lingering on the banks of a 
small but rapid stream, within an hour's journey to the 
encampment of Webb, like those who awaited the appear- 
ance of an absent person, or the approach of some expected 
event. . . . 

While one of these loiterers showed the red skin and 
wild accoutrements of a native of the woods, the other 
exhibited, through the mask of his rude and nearly savage 
equipments, the brighter, though sun-burnt and long-faded 
complexion of one who might claim descent from a European 
parentage. The former was seated on the end of a mossy 
log, in a posture that permitted him to heighten the effect 
of his earnest language, by the calm but expressive ges- 
tures of an Indian engaged in debate. ... A tomahawk 
and scalping-knife, of Enghsh manufacture, were in his 
girdle; while a short military rifle, of that sort with which 
the poHcy of the whites armed their savage allies, lay care- 
lessly across his bare and sinewy knee. The expanded 
chest, full-formed Hmbs, and grave countenance of this 
warrior, would denote that he had reached the vigor of 
his days, though no symptoms of decay appeared to have 
yet weakened his manhood. 

The frame of the white man, judging by such parts as 
were not concealed by his clothes, was Hke that of one who 
had known hardships and exertion from his earliest youth. 
... He wore a hunting shirt of forest-green, fringed with 
faded yellow, and a summer cap of skins which had been 
shorn of their fur. He also bore a knife in a girdle of wam- 
pum, like that which confined the scanty garments of the 
Indian, but no tomahawk. ... A pouch and horn com- 
pleted his personal accoutrements though a rifle of great 



The Early Writers 73 

length, which the theory of the more ingenious whites had 
taught them was the most dangerous of all firearms, leaned 
against a neighboring sapling. The eye of the hunter, or 
scout, whichever he might be, was small, quick, keen, and 
restless, roving while he spoke, on every side of him, as 
if in quest of game, or distrusting the sudden approach of 
some lurking enemy. Notwithstanding the symptoms of 
habitual suspicion, his countenance was not only without 
guile, but at the moment at which he is introduced it was 
charged with an expression of sturdy honesty. 

"Even your traditions make the case in my favor, 
Chingachgook," he said, speaking in the tongue which 
was known to all the natives who formerly inhabited the 
country between the Hudson and the Potomac. . . . 
"Your fathers came from the setting sun, crossed the big 
river, fought the people of the country, and took the land; 
and mine came from the red sky of the morning, over the 
salt lake, and did their work much after the fashion that 
had been set them by yours; then let God judge the mat- 
ter between us, and friends spare their words !" 

"My fathers fought with the naked red men !" returned 
the Indian, sternly, in the same language. "Is there no 
difiference, Hawkeye, between the stone-headed arrow of 
the warrior, and the leaden bullet with which you kill? " 

"There is reason in an Indian, though nature has made 
him with a red skin!" said, the white man, shaking his 
head hke one on whom such an appeal to his justice was 
not thrown away. . . , "I am no scholar, and I care not 
who knows it; but, judging from what I have seen, at deer 
chases and squirrel hunts, of the sparks below, I should 
think a rifle in the hands of their grandfathers was not so 
dangerous as a hickory bow and a good flint-head might 
be, if drawn with Indian judgment, and sent by an Indian 
eye." 

"You have the story told by your fathers," returned the 
other, coldly, waving his hand. "What say your old men? 
do they tell the young warriors that the pale faces met the 
red men, painted for war and armed with the stone hatchet 
and wooden gun ? " 



74 American Literature 

"I am not a prejudiced man, nor one who vaunts him- 
self on his natural privileges, though the worst enemy I 
have on earth, and he is an Iroquois, daren't deny that I 
am genuine white," the scout rephed, surveying, with 
secret satisfaction, the faded color of his bony and sinewy 
hand, "and I am wilHng to own that my people have many 
ways, of which, as an honest man, I can't approve. It is 
one of their customs to write in books what they have done 
and seen, instead of telling them in their villages, where the 
lie can be given to the face of a cowardly boaster, and 
the brave soldier can call on his comrades to witness for the 
truth of his words. In consequence of this bad fashion, a 
man, who is too conscientious to misspend his days among 
the women, in learning the names of black marks, may 
never hear of the deeds of his fathers, nor feel a pride 
in striving to outdo them. For myself, I conclude the 
Bumppos could shoot, for I have a natural turn with a 
rifle, which must have been handed down from generation 
to generation, as, our holy commandments tell us, all good 
and evil gifts are bestowed; though I should be loath to 
answer for other people in such a matter. But every 
story has its two sides; so I ask you, Chingachgook, what 
passed, according to the traditions of the red men, when 
our fathers first met?" 

A silence of a minute succeeded, during which the Indian 
sat mute; then, full of the dignity of his office, he com- 
menced his brief tale, with a solemnity that served to 
heighten its appearance of truth. 

"Listen, Hawkeye, and your ear shall drink no lie. 
'Tis what my fathers have said, and what the Mohicans 
have done." He hesitated a single instant, and bending 
a cautious glance toward his companion, he continued, in 
a manner that was divided between interrogation and 
assertion. "Does not this stream at our feet run toward 
the summer, until its waters grow salt, and the current 
flows upward?" 

"It can't be denied that your traditions tell you true 
in both these matters," said the white man; "for I have 
been there, and have seen them; though, why water, 



The Early Writers 75 

which is so sweet in the shade, should become bitter in 
the sun, is an alteration for which I have never been able 
to account." 

"And the current!" demanded the Indian, who ex- 
pected his reply with that sort of interest that a man feels 
in the confirmation of testimony, at which he marvels 
even while he respects it; "the fathers of Chingachgook 
have not lied !" 

"The holy Bible is not more true, and that is the truest 
thing in nature. They call this upstream current the tide, 
which is a thing soon explained, and clear enough. Six 
hours the waters run in, and six hours they run out, and 
the reason is this: when there is higher water in the sea 
than in the river, they run in until the river gets to be 
highest, and then it runs out again." 

"The waters in the woods, and on the great lakes, run 
downward until they lie like my hand," said the Indian, 
stretching the Hmb horizontally before him, " and then they 
run no more." 

"No honest man will deny it," said the scout, a little 
nettled at the implied distrust of his explanation of the 
mystery of the tides; "and I grant that it is true on the 
small scale, and where the land is level. But everything 
depends on what scale you look at things. Now, on the 
small scale, the 'arth is level; but on the large scale it is 
round. In this manner, pools and ponds, and even the 
great freshwater lakes, may be stagnant, as you and I 
both know they are, having seen them; but when you 
come to spread water over a great tract, like the sea, where 
the earth is round, how in reason can the water be quiet? 
You might as well expect the river to lie still on the brink 
of those black rocks a mile above us, though your own ears 
tell you that it is tumbling over them at this very mo- 
ment." 

If unsatisfied by the philosophy of his companion, the 
Indian was far too dignified to betray his unbelief. He 
listened like one who was convinced, and resumed his nar- 
rative in his former solemn manner. 

"We came from the place where the sun is hid at night, 



76 American Literature 

over great plains where the buffaloes live, until we reached 
the big river. There we fought the Alligewi, till the 
ground was red with their blood. From the banks of 
the big river to the shores of the salt lake, there was none 
to meet us. The Maquas followed at a distance. We 
said the country should be ours from the place where the 
waters run up no longer on this stream, to a river twenty- 
suns' journey toward the summer. The land we had 
taken like warriors we kept like men. We drove the 
Maquas into the woods with the bears. They only tasted 
salt at the licks; they drew no fish from the great lake; 
we threw them the bones." 

"All this I have heard and believe," said the white man, 
observing that the Indian paused; "but it was long before 
the EngUsh came into the country." 

"A pine grew then where this chestnut now stands. 
The first pale faces who came among us spoke no EngUsh. 
They came in a large canoe, when my fathers had buried 
the tomahawk with the red men around them. Then, 
Hawkeye," he continued, betraying his deep emotion, only 
by permitting his voice to fall to those low, guttural tones, 
which render his language, as spoken at times, so very 
musical; "then, Hawkeye, we were one people, and we 
were happy. The salt lake gave us its fish, the wood its 
deer, and the air its birds. We took wives who bore us 
children; we worshiped the Great Spirit; and we kept the 
Maquas beyond the sound of our songs of triumph!" 

"Know you anything of your own family at that time?" 
demanded the white. "But you are a just man, for an 
Indian; and as I suppose you hold their gifts, your fathers 
must have been brave warriors, and wise men at the coun- 
cil-fire." 

"My tribe is the grandfather of nations, but I am an 
unmixed man. The blood of chiefs is in my veins, where 
it must stay forever. The Dutch landed, and gave my 
people the fire-water; they drank until the heavens and the 
earth seemed to meet, and they foolishly thought they had 
found the Great Spirit. Then they parted with their land. 
Foot by foot, they were driven back from the shores, until 



The Early Writers 77\ 

I, that am a chief and a Sagamore, have never seen the sun 
shine but through the trees, and have never visited the 
graves of my fathers." 

"Graves bring solemn feelings over the mind," returned 
the scout, a good deal touched at the calm suffering of his 
companion; "and they often aid a man in his good inten- 
tions; though, for myself I expect to leave my own bones 
unburied, to bleach in the woods, or to be torn asunder by 
the wolves. But where are to be found those of your race 
who came to their kin in the Delaware country, so many 
summers since ? " 

"Where are the blossoms of those summers ! — fallen, one 
by one; so all of my family departed, each in his turn, to 
the land of spirits. I am on the hilltop and must go down 
into the valley; and when Uncas follows in my footsteps, 
there will no longer be any of the blood of the Sagamores, 
for my boy is the last of the Mohicans." 

"Uncas is here," said another voice, in the same soft 
guttural tones, near his elbow; "who speaks to Uncas?" 

The white man loosened his knife in his leathern sheath, 
and made an involuntary movement of the hand toward 
his rifle, at this sudden interruption; but the Indian sat 
composed, and without turning his head at the imexpected 
sounds. 

At the next instant, a youthful warrior passed between 
them, with a noiseless step, and seated himself on the bank 
of the rapid stream. No exclamation of surprise escaped 
the father, nor was any question asked, or reply given, for 
several minutes; each appearing to await the moment when 
he might speak, without betraying womanish curiosity or 
childish impatience. The white man seemed to take counsel 
from their customs, and, rehnquishing his grasp of the rifle, 
he also remained silent and reserved. At length Chingach- 
gook turned his eyes slowly toward his son, and demanded: 

"Do the Maquas dare to leave the print of their mocca- 
sins in these woods?" 

"I have been on their trail," replied the young Indian, 
"and know that they number as many as the fingers of my 
two hands; but they He hid like cowards," 



78 American Literature 

"The thieves are out-lying for scalps and plunder !" said 
the white man, whom we shall call Hawkeye after the man- 
ner of his companions. "That bushy Frenchman, Mont- 
calm, will send his spies into the very camp, but he will 
know what road we travel !" 

'"Tis enough." returned the father, glancing his eye 
towards the setting sun; "they shall be driven like deer 
from their bushes. Hawkeye, let us eat to-night, and show 
the Maquas that we are men to-morrow." 

"I am as ready to do the one as the other; but to fight 
the Iroquois 'tis necessary to find the skulkers; and to eat, 
'tis necessary to get the game — talk of the devil and he 
will come; there is a pair of the biggest antlers I have seen 
this season, moving the bushes below the hill ! Now, 
Uncas," he continued, in a half whisper, and laughing with 
a kind of inward sound, like one who had learned to be 
watchful, "I will bet my charger three times full of powder, 
against a foot of wampum, that I take him atwixt the eyes, 
and nearer to the right than to the left." 

"It cannot be!" said the young Indian, springing to his 
feet with youthful eagerness; "all but the tips of his horns 
are hid!" 

"He's a boy!" said the white man, shaking his head 
while he spoke and addressing the father. "Does he think 
when a hunter sees a part of the creatur', he can't tell 
where the rest of him should be?" 

Adjusting his rifle, he was about to make an exhibition 
of that skill on which he so much valued himself, when the 
warrior struck up the piece with his hand, saying, — 

"Hawkeye! will you fight the Maquas?" 

"These Indians know the nature of the woods, as it 
might be by instinct!" returned the scout, dropping his 
rifle, and turning away like a man who was convinced of 
his error, "I must leave the buck to your arrow, Uncas, 
or we may kill a deer for them thieves, the Iroquois, to 
eat." 

The instant the father seconded this intimation by an 
expressive gesture of the hand, Uncas threw himself on 
the ground, and approached the animal with wary move- 



The Early Writers 79 

ments. When within a few yards of the cover, he fitted an 
arrow to his bow with the utmost care, while the antlers 
moved, as if their owner snuffed an enemy in the tainted 
air. In another moment the twang of the cord was heard, 
a white streak was seen glancing into the bushes, and the 
wounded buck plunged from the cover, to the very feet of 
his hidden enemy. Avoiding the horns of the infuriated 
animal, Uncas darted to his side, and passed his knife 
across the throat, when bounding to the edge of the river 
it fell, dyeing the waters with its blood. 

"'Twas done with Indian skill," said the scout laughing 
inwardly, but with vast satisfaction; "and 'twas a pretty 
sight to behold! Though an arrow is a near shot, and 
needs a knife to finish the work." 

"Hugh!" ejaculated his companion, turning quickly, 
like a hound who scented game. 

"By the Lord, there is a drove of them!" exclaimed the 
scout, whose eyes began to glisten with the ardor of his 
usual occupation; "if they come within range of a bullet I 
will drop one, though the whole Six Nations should be 
lurking within sound ! What do you hear, Chingachgook ? 
for to my ears the woods are dumb." 

"There is but one deer, and he is dead," said the Indian, 
bending his body till his ear nearly touched the earth. "I 
hear the sounds of feet !" 

"Perhaps the wolves have driven the buck to shelter, 
and are following on his trail." 

"No. The horses of white men are coming!" returned 
the other, raising himself with dignity, and resuming his 
seat on the log with his former composure. "Hawkeye, 
they are your brothers; speak to them." 

"That will I, and in EngHsh that the king needn't be 
ashamed to answer," returned the hunter, speaking in the 
language of which he boasted; "but I see nothing, nor do 
I hear the sounds of man or beast; 'tis strange that an In- 
dian should understand white sounds better than a man who, 
his very enemies will own, has no cross in his blood, although 
he may have hved with the red skins long enough to be sus- 
pected 1 Ha ! there goes something Uke the cracking of a dry 



80 Ajnerican Literature 

stick, too — now I hear the bushes move — yes, yes, there 
is a trampling that I mistook for the falls— and — but here 
they come themselves; God keep them from the Iroquois !" 
(See Dramatization, by S. E. Simons and C. T. Orr, for 
dramatization of scenes from The Last of the Mohicans.) 

3. Daniel Webster (1782-185 2), a native of New Hamp- 
shire and a graduate of Dartmouth, was probably the greatest 
of American orators. While in Congress, in 1830-1832, he 
defended the Union against State sovereignty. The closing 
words of his speech in Reply to Hayne sum up his political 
creed, " Liberty and Union, now and ijrever, one and insepara- 
ble." Because Webster compromised in the slavery issue be- 
tween the North and South in 1850, Whittier wrote Ichabod, a 
scathing rebuke to him. But after many years he did some- 
what tardy justice to Webster's memory by writing The Lost 
Occasion. Webster was twice returned to thd'tJnited States 
Senate and was Secretary of State 1841-1843. ^ijfcsitwo Bunker 
Hill speeches are among his best orations. 

The Federal Union 
(From Webster's Reply to Hayne) 

I profess, Sir, in my career hitherto, to have kept 
steadily in view the prosperity, and honor of the whole 
country, and the preservation of our Federal Union. . . . 

I have not allowed myself. Sir, to look beyond the Union, 
to see what might lie hidden in the dark recess behind. I 
have not coolly weighed the chances of preserving Uberty 
when the bonds that unite us together shall be broken 
asunder. I have not accustomed myself to hang over the 
precipice of disunion, to see whether, with my short sight, 
I can fathom the depth of the abyss below; nor could I 
regard him as a safe counsellor in the affairs of this govern- 
ment, whose thoughts should be mainly bent on consider- 
ing, not how the Union may best be preserved, but how 
tolerable might be the condition of the people when it shall 
be broken up and destroyed. While the Union lasts, we 
have high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread out before 
us, for us and our children. Beyond that I seek not to 



The Early Writers 81 

penetrate the veil. God grant that in my day, at least, 
the curtain may not rise ! God grant that on my vision 
never may be opened what lies behind ! When my eyes 
shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, 
may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored 
fragments of a once glorious Union; on states dissevered, 
discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or 
drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood ! Let their last 
feeble and Hngering glance rather behold the gorgeous en- 
sign of the republic, now known and honored throughout 
the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies 
streaming in their original lustre, not a stripe erased or 
polluted, nor a single star obscured, bearing for its motto 
no such miserable interrogatory as "What is all this 
worth?" nor those other words of delusion and folly, 
"Liberty first and Union afterward"; but everywhere 
spread all over in characters of living Hght, blazing on all 
its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land, 
and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sen- 
timent, dear to every true American heart, Liberty and 
Union, now and forever, one and inseparable ! 



The Character of Washington 

(From the Second Bunker Hill Oration, delivered June 17, 1843) 

America has furnished to the world the character of 
Washington. And if our American institutions had done 
nothing else, that alone would have entitled them to the 
respect of mankind. Washington! "First in war, first 
in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen!" 
Washington is all our own! The enthusiastic veneration 
and regard in which the people of the United States hold 
him, prove them to be worthy of such a countryman; 
while his reputation abroad reflects the highest honor 
on his country. I would cheerfully put the question to-day 
to the intelhgence of Europe and the world, What char- 
acter of the century, upon the whole, stands out in the relief 
of history, most pure, most respectable, most subHme? 



82 American Literature 

and I doubt not, that, by a suffrage approaching to unanim- 
ity, the answer would be, Washington ! 

The structure now standing before us, by its uprightness, 
its soHdity, its durabiUty, is no unfit emblem of his char- 
acter. His public virtues and pubUc principles were as 
firm as the earth on which it stands; his personal motives, 
as pure as the serene heaven in which its summit is lost. 
But, indeed, though a fit, it is an inadequate emblem. 
Towering high above the column which our hands have 
builded, beheld, not by the inhabitants of a single city or 
a single state, but by all the families of man, ascends the 
colossal grandeur of the character and life of Washington. 
In all the constituents of the one, in all the acts of the 
other, in all its titles to immortal love, admiration, and 
renown, it is an American production. It is the embod- 
iment and vindication of our Transatlantic liberty. Born 
upon our soil, of parents also born upon it; never for a 
moment having had sight of the Old World; instructed, 
according to the modes of his time, only in the spare, plain, 
but wholesome elementary knowledge which our institu- 
tions provide for the children of the people; growing up 
beneath and penetrated by the genuine influences of 
American society; living from infancy to manhood and 
age amidst our expanding but not luxurious civiUzation; 
partaking in our great destiny of labor, our long contest 
with unreclaimed nature and uncivilized man, our agony 
of glory, the war of Independence, our great victory of 
peace, the formation of the Union, and the establishment 
of the Constitution, — he is all, all our own ! Washington 
is ours. . . . 

I claim him for America. In all the perils, in every 
darkened moment of the state, in the midst of the reproaches 
of enemies and the misgivings of friends, I turn to that 
transcendent name for courage and for consolation. To 
him who denies or doubts whether our fervid liberty can 
be combined with law, with order, with the security of 
property, with the pursuits and advancement of happi- 
ness; to him who denies that our forms of government are 
capable of producing exaltation of soul and the passion of 



The Early Writers 83 

true glory; to him who denies that we have contributed 
anything to the stock of great lessons and great examples, 
— to all these I reply by pointing to Washington ! 

(Compare with Jefferson's characterization, supra, p. 39.) 

4. Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), poet and short-story 
writer, the greatest of our Southern men of letters, has the widest 
international fame of any American author. Tennyson con- 
sidered him the best American poet. He was the inventor of 
the detective story and, with the sole exception of Hawthorne, 
ranks as the greatest of our short-story writers. In his treat- 
ment of the weird he is excelled only by Coleridge. 



The Masque of the Red Death 

The " Red Death " had long devastated the country. No 
pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood 
was its avatar and its seal — the redness and the horror 
of blood. There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, 
and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution. 
The scarlet stains upon the body, and especially upon the 
face, of the victim were the pest ban which shut him out 
from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow-men. 
And the whole seizure, progress, and termination of the 
disease were the incidents of half an hour. 

But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and 
sagacious. When his dominions were half depopulated, he 
summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light- 
hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his 
court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one 
of his castellated abbeys. This was an extensive and 
magnificent structure, the creation of the Prince's own 
eccentric yet august taste. A strong and lofty wall girdled 
it in. This wall had gates of iron. The courtiers, having 
entered, brought furnaces and massy hammers, and welded 
the bolts. They resolved to leave means neither of in- 
gress or egress to the sudden impulses of despair or of 
frenzy from within. The abbey was amply provisioned. 
With such precautions the courtiers might bid defiance 



84 American Literature 

to contagion. The external world could take care of itself. 
In the meantime it was folly to grieve, or to think. The 
Prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure. There 
were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were ballet- 
dancers, there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was 
wine. All these and security were within. Without was 
the "Red Death." 

It was toward the close of the fifth or sixth month of his 
seclusion, and while the pestilence raged most furiously 
abroad that the Prince Prospero entertained his thou- 
sand friends at a masked ball of the most unusual magnifi- 
cence. 

It was a voluptuous scene, that masquerade. But first 
let me tell of the rooms in which it was held. There were 
seven — an imperial suite. In many palaces, however, 
such suites form a long and straight vista, while the fold- 
ing-doors shde back nearly to the walls on either hand, so 
that the view of the whole extent is scarcely impeded. 
Here the case was very different, as might have been ex- 
pected from the Prince's love of the bizarre. The apart- 
ments were so irregularly disposed that the vision embraced 
but httle more than one at a time. There was a sharp turn 
at every twenty or thirty yards, and at each turn a novel 
effect. To the right and left, in the middle of each wall, 
a tall and narrow Gothic window looked out upon a closed 
corridor which pursued the windings of the suite. These 
windows were of stained glass, whose color varied in accor- 
dance with the prevailing hue of the decorations of the 
chamber into which it opened. That at the eastern ex- 
tremity was hung, for example, in blue — and vividly blue 
were its windows. The second chamber was purple in its 
ornaments and tapestries, and here the panes were purple. 
The third was green throughout, and so were the case- 
ments. The fourth was furnished and lighted with orange, 
the fifth with white, the sixth with violet. The seventh 
apartment was closeb'' shrouded in black velvet tapestries 
that hung all over the ceiling and down the walls, falling 
in heavy folds upon a carpet of the same material and hue. 
But, in this chamber only, the color of the windows failed 



The Early Writers 85 

to correspond with the decorations. The panes here were 
scarlet — a deep blood-color. Now in no one of the seven 
apartments was there any lamp or candelabrum, amid the 
profusion of golden ornaments that lay scattered to and 
fro or depended from the roof. There was no light of any 
kind emanating from lamp or candle within the suite of 
chambers. But in the corridors that followed the suite 
there stood, opposite to each window, a heavy tripod, bear- 
ing a brazier of fire, that projected its rays through the 
tinted glass and so glaringly illumined the room. And 
thus were produced a multitude of gaudy and fantastic 
appearances. But in the western or black chamber the 
effect of the firelight that streamed upon the dark hang- 
ings through the blood-tinted panes was ghastly in the 
extreme, and produced so wild a look upon the counte- 
nances of those who entered that there were few of the 
company bold enough to set foot within its precincts at all. 
It was in this apartment, also, that there stood against 
the western wall a gigantic clock of ebony. Its pendulum 
swung to and fro with a dull, heavy, monotonous clang; 
and when the minute-hand made the circuit of the face, 
and the hour was to be stricken, there came from the 
brazen lungs of the clock a sound which was clear and loud 
and deep and exceedingly musical, but of so pecuHar a note 
and emphasis that, at each lapse of an hour, the musicians 
of the orchestra were constrained to pause, momentarily, 
in their performance, to harken to the sound ; and thus the 
waltzers perforce ceased their evolutions; and there was 
a brief disconcert of the whole gay company; and, while 
the chimes of the clock yet rang it was observed that the 
giddiest grew pale and the more aged and sedate passed 
their hands over their brows as if in confused revery or 
meditation. But when the echoes had fully ceased, a light 
laughter at once pervaded the assembly; the musicians 
looked at each other and smiled as if at their own nervous- 
ness and folly, and made whispering vows, each to the other, 
that the next chiming of the clock should produce in them 
no similar emotion; and then, after the lapse of sixty min- 
utes (which embrace three thousand and six hundred sec- 



86 American Literature 

onds of the Time that flies) there came yet another chiming 
of the clock, and then were the same disconcert and tremu- 
lousness and meditation as before. 

But, in spite of these things, it was a gay and mag- 
nificent revel. The tastes of the Prince were peculiar. 
He had a fine eye for colors and effects. He disregarded the 
decora of mere fashion. His plans were bold and fiery, 
and his conceptions glowed with barbaric lustre. There 
are some who would have thought him mad. His follow- 
ers felt that he was not. It was necessary to hear and see 
and touch him to be sure that he was not. 

He had directed, in great part, the movable embellish- 
ments of the seven chambers, upon occasion of this great 
fete; and it was his own guiding taste which had given 
character to the masqueraders. Be sure they were gro- 
tesque. There were much glare and gHtter and piquancy 
and phantasm — much of what has been since seen in 
Hernani. There were arabesque figures with unsuited 
limbs and appointments. There were deKrious fancies such 
as the madman fashions. There was much of the beau- 
tiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something 
of the terrible, and not a Uttle of that which might have 
excited disgust. To and fro in the seven chambers there 
stalked, in fact, a multitude of dreams. And these — the 
dreams — writhed in and about, taking hue from the rooms, 
and causing the wild music of the orchestra to seem as the 
echo of their steps. And, anon, there strikes the ebony 
clock which stands in the hall of velvet. And then, for 
a moment, all is still, and all is silent save the voice of 
the clock. The dreams are stiff-frozen as they stand. 
But the echoes of the chime die away — they have endured 
but an instant — and a light, half-subdued laughter floats 
after them as they depart. And now again the music 
swells, and the dreams Uve, and writhe to and fro more 
merrily than ever, taking hue from the many tinted win- 
dows through which stream the rays from the tripods. 
But to the chamber which lies most westwardly of the 
seven, there are now none of the maskers who venture; 
for the night is waning away, and there flows a ruddier 



The Early Writers 87 

light through the blood-colored panes; and the blackness 
of the sable drapery appalls; and to him whose foot falls 
upon the sable carpet, there comes from the near clock of 
ebony a muffled peal more solemnly emphatic than any 
which reaches their ears who indulge in the more remote 
gayeties of the other apartments. 

But these other apartments were densely crowded, and 
in them beat feverishly the heart of Hfe. And the revel 
went whirlingly on, until at length there commenced the 
sounding of midnight upon the clock. And then the music 
ceased, as I have told; and the evolutions of the waltzers 
were quieted; and there was an uneasy cessation of all 
things as before. But now there were twelve strokes to 
be sounded by the bell of the clock; and thus it hap- 
pened, perhaps, that more of thought crept, wdth more of 
time, into the meditations of the thoughtful among those 
who revelled. And thus, too, it happened, perhaps, that 
before the last echoes of the last chime had utterly sunk 
into silence, there were many individuals in the crowd who 
had found leisure to become aware of the presence of a 
masked figure which had arrested the attention of no single 
individual before. And the rumor of this new presence 
having spread itself whisperingly around, there arose at 
length from the whole company a buzz, or murmur, ex- 
pressive of disapprobation and surprise — then, finally, of 
terror, of horror, and of disgust. 

In an assembly of phantasms such as I have painted, it 
may well be supposed that no ordinary appearance could 
have excited such sensation. In truth the masquerade 
license of the night was nearly unlimited; but the figure 
in question had out-Heroded Herod, and gone beyond 
the bounds of even the Prince's indefinite decorum. There 
are chords in the hearts of the most reckless which cannot 
be touched without emotion. Even with the utterly lost, 
to whom life and death are equally jests, there are mat- 
ters of which no jests can be made. The whole company, 
indeed, seemed now deeply to feel that in the costume and 
bearing of the stranger neither wit nor propriety existed. 
The figure was tall and gaunt, and shrouded from head to 



88 American Literature 

foot in the habiliments of the grave. The mask which 
concealed the visage was made so nearly to resemble the 
countenance of a stiffened corpse that the closest scrutiny- 
must have had difficulty in detecting the cheat. And yet 
all this might have been endured, if not approved, by the 
mad revellers around. But the mummer had gone so far 
as to assume the type of the Red Death. His vesture was 
dabbled in hlood — and his broad brow, with all the features 
of the face, was besprinkled with the scarlet horror. 

When the eyes of Prince Prospero fell upon this spectral 
image (which with a slow and solemn movement, as if 
more fully to sustain its role, stalked to and fro among the 
waltzers) he was seen to be convulsed, in the first moment, 
with a strong shudder either of terror or distaste; but, in 
the next, his brow reddened with rage. 

"Who dares?" he demanded hoarsely of the courtiers 
who stood near him — "who dares insult us with this blas- 
phemous mockery? Seize him and unmask him — ^that we 
may know whom we have to hang at sunrise, from the 
battlements!" 

It was in the eastern or blue chamber in which stood the 
Prince Prospero as he uttered these words. They rang 
throughout the seven rooms loudly and clearly — for the 
Prince was a bold and robust man, and the music had be- 
come hushed at the waving of his hand. 

It was in the blue room where stood the Prince, with a 
group of pale courtiers by his side. At first, as he spoke, 
there was a sHght rushing movement of this group in the 
direction of the intruder, who at the moment was also near 
at hand, and now, with deliberate and stately step, made 
closer approach to the speaker. But from a certain name- 
less awe with which the mad assumptions of the mummer 
had inspired the whole party, there were found none who 
put forth hand to seize him; so that, unimpeded, he passed 
within a yard of the Prince's person; and while the vast 
assembly, as if with one impulse, shrank from the centres 
of the rooms to the walls, he made his way uninterruptedly, 
but with the same solemn and measured step which had 
distinguished him from the first, through the blue chamber 



The Early Writers 89 

to the purple — through the purple to the green — through 
the green to the orange — through this again to the white — 
and even thence to the violet, ere a decided movement had 
been made to arrest him. It was then, however, that the 
Prince Prospero, maddening with rage and the shame of 
his own momentary cowardice, rushed hurriedly through 
the six chambers, while none followed him on account of 
a deadly terror that had seized upon all. He bore aloft a 
drawn dagger, and had approached, in rapid impetuosity, 
to within three or four feet of the retreating figure, when the 
latter, having attained the extremity of the velvet apart- 
ment, turned suddenly and confronted his pursuer. There 
was a sharp cry — and the dagger dropped gleaming upon 
the sable carpet, upon which, instantly afterwards, fell 
prostrate in death the Prince Prospero. Then, summon- 
ing the wild courage of despair, a throng of the revellers at 
once threw themselves into the black apartment, and, 
seizing the mummer, whose tall figure stood erect and 
motionless within the shadow of the ebony clock, gasped 
in unutterable horror at finding the grave cerements and 
corpse-Hke mask, which they handled with so violent a 
rudeness, untenanted by any tangible form. 

And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red 
Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And 
one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed 
halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture 
of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with 
that of the last of the gay. And the flame of the tripods 
expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death 
held illimitable dominion over all. 

ISRAFEL 

"And the angel Israfel, whose heart-strings are a lute, and who 
has the sweetest voice of all God's creatures." — Koran. 

In Heaven a spirit doth dwell, 

"Whose heart-strings are a lute." 
None sing so wildly well 
As the angel Israfel, 



American Literature 

And the giddy stars (so legends tell) 
Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell 
Of his voice, all mute. 

Tottering above, 

In her highest noon, 

The enamoured moon 
Blushes with love, 

While, to listen, the red leven 

(With the rapid Pleiads, even. 

Which were seven) 

Pauses in Heaven. 

And they say (the starry choir 
And the other listening things) 

That Israfeli's fire 

Is owing to that lyre 

By which he sits and sings, — 

The trembling living wire 
Of those unusual strings. 

But the skies that angel trod. 

Where deep thoughts are a duty — 

Where Love's a grown-up God — 
Where the Houri glances are 

Imbued with all the beauty 
Which we worship in a star. 

Therefore thou art not wrong, 

Israfeli, who despisest 
An unimpassioned song; 
To thee the laurels belong, 

Best bard, because the wisest: 
Merrily Uve, and long ! 

The ecstasies above 

With thy burning measures suit: 

Thy grief, thy joy, thy hate, thy love, 
With the fervor of thy lute: 
Well may the stars be mute ! 



The Early Writers 91 

Yes, Heaven is thine; but this 

Is a world of sweets and sours; 

Our flowers are merely— flowers, 
And the shadow of thy perfect bhss 

Is the sunshine of ours. 

If I could dwell 
Where Israfel 

Hath dwelt, and he where I, 
He might not sing so wildly well 

A mortal melody, — 
While a bolder note than this might swell 

From my lyre within the sky. 

5, William Cullen Bryant (1794-187 8), the patriarch of 
American poetry, was born in Massachusetts but, like Irving 
and Cooper, belongs to New York. He is our first great poet 
and is often called the American Wordsworth. He was a 
child prodigy, but in his case the child prodigy became the 
great literary artist and producer. At the age of seventeen he 
wrote Thanatopsis, a poem giving his ideas of death; at the 
age of seventy-three he began the translation of Homer into 
blank verse. "For faithfulness and majesty," says Professor 
Newcomer, "his translation ranks among the best that have 
been made." 

The Death of the Flowers 

The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year, 
Of waiUng winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown 

and sere. 
Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves he 

dead; 
They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread. 
The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the 

jay, 
And from the wood-top calls the crow through afl the 

gloomy day. 

Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately 

sprang and stood 
In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood ? 



92 American Literature 

Alas ! They all are in their graves, the gentle race of 

flowers 
Are lying in their lowly beds, with the fair and good of 

ours. 
The rain is falling where they lie, but the cold November 

rain 
Calls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely ones again. 

The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago, 
And the brier-rose and the orchis died amid the summer 

glow; 
But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood, 
And the yellow sun-flower by the brook, in autumn beauty 

stood, 
Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the 

plague on men, 
And the brightness of their smile was gone, from upland, 

glade, and glen. 

And now, when comes the calm mild day, as still such days 

will come. 
To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter 

home; 
When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the 

trees are still. 
And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill, 
The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance 

late he bore. 
And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream 

no more. 

And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died, 
The fair meek blossom that grew up and faded by my side. 
In the cold moist earth we laid her, when the forest cast 

the leaf, 
And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief: 
Yet not unmeet it was that one like that young friend of 

ours. 
So gentle and so beautiful should perish with the flowers. 



The Early Writers 9S 

To A Waterfowl 

Whither, 'midst falling dew, 

While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, 
Far through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue 

Thy sohtary way ? 

Vainly the fowler's eye 

Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, 
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky, 

Thy figure floats along. 

Seek'st thou the plashy brink 

Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, 

Or where the rocking billows rise and sink 
On the chafed ocean side ? 

There is a power whose care 

Teaches thy way along that pathless coast^ 
The desert and illimitable air — 

Lone wandering, but not lost. 

All day thy wings have fanned, 

At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere. 
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land, 

Though the dark night is near. 

And soon that toil shall end; 

Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest, 
And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend, 

Soon, o'er thy sheltered nest. 

Thou'rt gone, the abyss of heaven 

Hath swallowed up thy form ; yet on my heart 
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given. 

And shall not soon depart. 

He who, from zone to zone, 

Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, 
In the long way that I must tread alone, 

Will lead my steps aright. 



94 American Literature 



The Hurricane 

Lord of the winds ! I feel thee nigh, 
I know thy breath in the burning sky ! 
And I wait, with a thrill in every vein, 
For the coming of the hurricane ! 

And lo ! on the wing of the heavy gales, 
Through the boundless arch of heaven he sails; 
Silent, and slow, and terribly strong, 
The mighty shadow is borne along. 
Like the dark eternity to come; 
While the world below, dismayed and dumb. 
Through the calm of the thick hot atmosphere 
Looks up at its gloomy folds with fear. 

They darken fast — and the golden blaze 
Of the sun is quenched in the lurid haze. 
And he sends through the shade a funeral ray — 
A glare that is neither night nor day, 
A beam that touches, with hues of death. 
The clouds above and the earth beneath. 
To its covert ghdes the silent bird, 
While the hurricane's distant voice is heard, 
Uplifted among the mountains round. 
And the forests hear and answer the sound. 

He is come ! he is come ! do ye not behold 
His ample robes on the wind unrolled ? 
Giant of air ! we bid thee hail ! — 
How his gray skirts toss in the whirHng gale; 
How his huge and writhing arms are bent, 
To clasp the zone of the firmament. 
And fold, at length, in their dark embrace. 
From mountain to mountain the visible space. 

Darker — still darker ! the whirlwinds bear 
The dust of the plains to the middle air: 
And hark to the crashing, long and loud, 
Of the chariot of God in the thunder-cloud ! 
You may trace its path by the flashes that start 
From the rapid wheels where'er they dart, 



The Early Writers 95 

As the fire-bolts leap to the world below, 
And flood the skies with a lurid glow. 

What roar is that ? — 'Tis the rain that breaks, 
In torrents away from the airy lakes, 
Heavily poured on the shuddering ground, 
And shedding a nameless horror round. 
Ah ! well-known woods, and mountains, and skies, 
With the very clouds ! — -ye are lost to my eyes. 
I seek ye vainly, and see in your place 
The shadowy tempest that sweeps through space, 
A whirling ocean that fills the wall 
Of the crystal heaven, and buries all. 
And I, cut off from the world, remain 
Alone with the terrible hurricane. 



To THE Fringed Gentian 

Thou blossom bright with autumn dew, 
And colored with the heaven's own blue, 
That openest, when the quiet Hght 
Succeeds the keen and frosty night; 

Thou comest not when violets lean 
O'er wandering brooks and springs unseen, 
Or columbines, in purple dressed. 
Nod o'er the ground bird's hidden nest. 

Thou waitest late, and com'st alone, 
When woods are bare and birds are flown, 
And frosts and shortening days portend 
The aged year is near liis end. 

Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye 
Look through its fringes to the sky, 
Blue — blue — as if that sky let fall 
A flower from its cerulean wall. 

I would that thus, when I shall see 
The hour of death draw near to me, 



96 American Literature 

Hope, blossoming within my heart, 
May look to heaven as I depart. 

(Compare with this Freneau's The Wild Honeysuckle, 
supra, p. 53, and Wordsworth's To the Small Celandine.) 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

I. Irving 
For Further Illustration 

Knickerbocker's History, books V, VI, and VII. 
The Christmas Dinner, in The Sketch Book. 
The Stout Gentleman, in Bracebridge Hall. 
Westminster Abbey. 

For Collateral Reading 
Longfellow, H. W.: In the Churchyard at Tarrytown. 
Thackeray, W. M.: Nil Nisi Bonum. 

II. Cooper 
For Further Illustration 

The Deerslayer, chapters XXVII to XXXI. 
The Pilot, chapters I to IV. 
The Pioneers, chapters III and XXVIII. 
Corporal Flint's Murder, in The Oak Openings. 

For Collateral Reading 

Bryant's Memorial Address, in Orations and Addresses of W. C. 
Bryant. 

III. Webster 
For Further Illustration 
First Bunker Hill Oration. 
Reply to Hayne. 
Second Bunker Hill Oration. 

For Collateral Reading 

Whittier, J. G.: Ichabod. The Lost Occasion. 

IV. POE 
For Further Illustration 

A Descent into the Maelstrom 

The Fall of the House of Usher \ Prose. 

Willicm Wilson 



The Early Writers 97 

Annabel Lee 1 

The Bells \ Poetry. 

The Raven J 

For Collateral Reading 

Boner, J. H. : Poe^s Cottage at Fordham. 

Whitman, Sarah Helen: Sonnets, in Stedman's An American 
Anthology. 

V. Bryant 
For Further Illustration 

A Lifetime (Biographical.) 

The Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood. 

The Planting of the Apple Tree. 

The Song of Marion'' s Men. 

For Collateral Reading 
Lowell, J. R.: On Board the '76. A Fable for Critics. (His 

characterization of Bryant.) 
Whitman, W.: My Tribute to Four Poets (in Specimen Days). 

II. Of Lesser Note 

From the time of Irving to the rise of the brilliant New 
England group about the middle of the century, New York 
was the loadstar that attracted the man of letters. Here 
he could get work on one or several of the many periodicals 
that jflourished during these years, and here he could find 
congenial companions, men of similar tastes and talents. 

Fitz-Greene Halleck (1790-1867) and Joseph Rodman Drake 

( 1 795-1820) were two of the early New York group of writers. 
The friendship of these men is one of the most interesting in all 
literary history. Halleck is remembered to-day for his beauti- 
ful lines written on the death of his friend, and Drake for his 
poem The American Flag, of which the four concluding lines 
were written by Halleck. 

I. Fitz-Greene Halleck 

On the Death of Joseph Rodman Drake 

Green be the turf above thee, 
Friend of my better days ! 



98 American Literature 

None knew thee but to love thee, 
Nor named thee but to praise. 

Tears fell when thou wert dying, 
From eyes unused to weep, 

And long, where thou art lying. 
Will tears the cold turf steep. 

When hearts, whose truth was proven, 
Like thine, are laid in earth, 

There should a wreath be woven 
To tell the world their worth. 

And I, who woke each morrow 
To clasp thy hand in mine. 

Who shared thy joy and sorrow, 
Whose weal and woe were thine; 

It should be mine to braid it 

Around thy faded brow, 
But I've in vain essayed it. 

And feel I cannot now. 

While memory bids me weep thee, 
Nor thoughts nor words are free, — 

The grief is fixed too deeply 
That mourns a man like thee. 

2. Joseph Rodman Drake 

The American Flag 

When Freedom, from her mountain height 

Unfurled her standard to the air, 
She tore the azure robe of night. 

And set the stars of glory there. 
She mingled with its gorgeous dyes 
The milky baldric of the skies, 
And striped its pure celestial white 
With streakings of the morning light; 
Then, from his mansion in the sun 



The Early Writers 99 

She called her eagle bearer down, 
And gave into his mighty hand 
The symbol of her chosen land. 

Majestic monarch of the cloud, 

Who rear'st aloft thy regal form. 
To hear the tempest trumpings loud 
And see the lightning lances driven, 

When strive the warriors of the storm, 
And rolls the thunder-drum of heaven, — 
Child of the sun ! to thee 'tis given 

To guard the banner of the free. 
To hover in the sulphur smoke, 
To ward away the battle stroke. 
And bid its blendings shine afar, 
Like rainbows on the cloud of war, 

To harbingers of victory ! 

Flag of the brave ! thy folds shall fly 
The sign of hope and triumph high ! 
When speaks the signal trumpet tone. 
And the long Hne comes gleaming on. , 
Ere yet the Hfe-blood, warm and wet, 
Has dimmed the glistening bayonet,_ 
Each soldier eye shall brightly turn 
To where thy sky-born glories burn. 
And, as his springing steps advance. 
Catch war and vengeance from the glance. 
And when the cannon-mouthings loud 
Heave in wild wreaths the battle shroud, 
And gory sabres rise and fall 
Like shoots of flame on midnight's pall, 

Then shall thy meteor glances glow, 
And cowering foes shall sink beneath 

Each gallant arm that strikes below 
That lovely messenger of death. 

Flag of the seas ! on ocean wave 
Thy stars shall glitter o'er the brave; 



100 American Literature 

When death, careering on the gale, 
Sweeps darkly round the belHed sail, 
And frighted waves rush wildly back 
Before the broadside's reeling rack, 
Each dying wanderer of the sea 
Shall look at once to heaven and thee, 
And smile to see thy splendors fly 
In triumph o'er his closing eye. 

Flag of the free heart's hope and home, 

By angel hands to valor given ! 
Thy stars have lit the welkin dome, 

And all thy hues were born in heaven. 
Forever float that standard sheet ! 

Where breathes the foe but falls before us, 
With Freedom's soil beneath our feet, 

And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us ! 

3. Francis Scott Key (1779-1843) was a lawyer of Wash- 
ington, D. C. He was inspired to write the S tar-Spangled 
Banner while witnessing from a British man-of-war the bom- 
bardment of Fort McHenry, near Baltimore, during the War 
of 1812. 

The Star-Spangled Banner 

01 say, can you see, by the dawn's early light. 
What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleam- 
ing,— 
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous 
fight 
O'er the ramparts we watch'd, were so gallantly stream- 
ing? 
And the rocket's red glare, the bomb bursting in air, 
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there; 
O ! say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave 
O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave ? 

On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep, 

Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes, 
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep. 



The Early Writers 101 

As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses ? 
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam, 
In full glory reflected now shines on the stream; 

'Tis the star-spangled banner — O ! long may it wave 
O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave ! 

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore, 
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion 

A home and a country should leave us no more ? 

Their blood has wash'd out their foul footsteps' pollution. 

No refuge could save the hirehng and slave 

From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave, 
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave 
O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave. 

O ! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand 

Between their lov'd homes and the war's desolation ! 

Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the Heav'n-rescued land 
Praise the power that hath made and preserved us a na- 
tion ! 

Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, 

And this be our motto — In God is our trust. 

And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave 
O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave. 

4. Samuel Woodworth (1785-1842) was the author of the 
well-known song which follows. 

The Bucket 

How dear to this heart are the scenes of my childhood, 

When fond recollection presents them to view ! 
The orchard, the meadow, the deep- tangled wildwood. 

And every loved spot which my infancy knew ! 
The wide-spreading pond, and the mill that stood by it, 

The bridge, and the rock where the cataract fell, 
The cot of my father, the dairy-house nigh it; 

And e'en the rude bucket that hung in the well — 
The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket, 

The moss-covered bucket that hung in the well. 



lO^i Anu'Hmn Literature 

The moss-a^vercvl vessel I haikxi as a treasure, 

For often at n(.XMi. when returned from the field, 
I found it the source of an exquisite pleasure. 

The purest and sweetest that nature can yield. 
How ardeut 1 sei/.evi it. with hands tJiat were glowing, 

And quick to the whiti^pebbkxi bottom it fell; 
Theu s^xMi. with the emblem of truth over-tlowing, 

And dripping with c*.x^lness. it rose from the well — 
The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket. 

The moss-a^veretl bucket arose from the well. 

How sweet from the green, mossy brim to receive it, 

As poised on the curb it inclined to my lips ! 
Not a full, blushing goblet could tempt me to leave it, 

The brightest that beauty or revelry sips. 
And now. far removevi from the loveil habitation, 

The tear of regret will intrusively swell. 
As fancy reverts to my father's plantation. 

And sighs for the bucket that hangs in the well — 
The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket. 

The moss-covered bucket that hangs in the well ! 

5. Emma H. Willard (1787-1870'^ was a Connecticut woman 
who became f.mious as an evlucator. She >\Tote the familiar 
hymn Rocked in Ute CraJi^ of the Deep. 

Rocked in the Cr.\dle of the Deep 

Rocked in the cradle of the deep 
I lay me down in peace to sleep; 
Secure I rest upK>n the wave. 
For thou. O Lord 1 hast power to save. 
I know thou wilt not sHght my call. 
For Thou dost mark the spuirrow's fall; 
And calm and peaceful shall I sleep, 
Rocked in the cradle of the deep. 

\\'hen in the dead of night I He 
And gaze upon the trackless sky. 



The Early Writers lOS 

The star-be^>ang^ heavenly scroll, 
The hxnindless waters as they roll, — 
I feel thy wondrous power to save 
From perils of the stormy wave: 
Rocked in the cradle of the deep, 
I calmly rest and soimdly sleep. 

And such the trust that still were mine, 
Though stormy winds swept o'er the brine, 
Or through the tempest's fiery breath 
Roused me from sleep to wreck and death- 
In ocean cave, still safe with Thee 
The germ of immortality I 
And calm and peaceful shall I sleep, 
Rocked in the cradle of the deq). 



6. John Howard Payne C1791-1852) was a dramatist 
who won lasting fame through his song Home, Sweet Home/ 
This occurs in his opera Clari, the Maid of MUan, wiudi was 
first produced at Covent Garden, London, in 1823- 

HoiLE, Sv.xET Home! 

Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam. 

Be it e\'er so humble, there's no place like home; 

A charm from the sky seems to hallow us there, 

WTiich, seek through the world, is ne'er met with elsewhere. 

Home, Home, sweet, sweet Home I 
There's no place like Home ! there's no place like Home ! 

An exile from home, splendor dazzles in vain; 

O, give me my lowly thatched cottage again ! 

The birds singing gayly, that came at my call, — 

(Hve me them — and the peace of mind, dearer than all I 

Home, Home, sweet, sweet Home ! 
There's no place like Home 1 there's no place Hke Home I 

How sweet 'tis to sit 'neath a fond fathers smile. 
And the cares of a mother to soothe and beguile I 



104 American Literature 

Let others delight mid new pleasures to roam, 
But give me, O, give me, the pleasures of home ! 

Home ! Home ! sweet, sweet Home ! 
There's no place Uke Home ! there's no place like Home ! 

To thee I'll return, overburdened with care; 
The heart's dearest solace will smile on me there; 
No more from that cottage again will I roam; 
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home. 

Home ! Home ! sweet, sweet Home ! 
There's no place like Home ! there's no place like Home ! 

7. George Morris (1802-1864) is remembered to-day for 
his poem Woodman, Spare That Tree. 

Woodman, Spare That Tree ! 

Woodman, spare that tree ! 

Touch not a single bough ! 
In youth it sheltered me. 

And I'll protect it now. 
'T was my forefather's hand 

That placed it near his cot; 
There, woodman, let it stand, 

Thy axe shall harm it not. 

The old famiUar tree. 

Whose glory and renown 
Are spread o'er land and sea — 

And wouldst thou hew it down ? 
Woodman, forbear thy stroke ! 

Cut not its earth-bound ties; 
Oh, spare that aged oak 

Now towering to the skies ! 

When but an idle boy, 

I sought its grateful shade; 
In all their gushing joy 

Here, too, my sisters played. 



The Early Writers 105 

My mother kissed me here; 

My father pressed my hand — 
Forgive this fooHsh tear, 

But let that old oak stand. 

My heart-strings round thee cling, 

Close as thy bark, old friend ! 
Here shall the wild-bird sing, 

And still thy branches bend. 
Old tree ! the storm still brave ! 

And, woodman, leave the spot; 
While I've a hand to save. 

Thy axe shall harm it not. 

8. Nathaniel Parker Willis (1807-1867) was born in New 
England and educated at Yale, but he identified himself with 
the literary life of New York City, especially with its periodi- 
cal literature. He was sent abroad by the management of the 
Mirror in order to contribute European letters to the magazine. 
He founded the Home Journal, a weekly which is still popular. 
Professor Barrett Wendell considers him the most characteris- 
tic New York man of letters after the year 1832, the most 
typical of the school which flourished throughout the career 
of the Knickerbocker Magazine (i 833-1 864), and says: " In 
his palmy days he was the most popular American writer out- 
side of New England." But his work has proved ephemeral, 
for it was almost wholly occasional. His Sacred Poems repre- 
sent his best achievement. 

The Belfry Pigeon 

On the cross-beam under the Old South bell, 

The nest of a pigeon is builded well. 

In summer and winter, that bird is there, 

Out and in with the morning air; 

I love to see him track the street 

With his wary eye and active feet. 

And I often watch him, as he springs, 

CircHng the steeple with easy wings. 

Till across the dial his shade has passed, 



American Literature 

And the belfry edge is gained at last; 
'Tis a bird I love, with its brooding note, 
And the trembUng throb in its mottled throat; 
There's a human look in its swelUng breast, 
And the gentle curve of its lowly crest; 
And I often stop with the fear I feel, — 
He runs so close to the rapid wheel. 

Whatever is rung on that noisy bell, — 
Chime of the hour, or funeral knell, — 
The dove in the belfry must hear it well. 
When the tongue swings out to the midnight moon, 
When the sexton cheerly rings for noon, 
When the clock strikes clear at morning light, 
When the child is waked with "nine at night," 
When the chimes play soft in the Sabbath air, 
Filling the spirit with tones of prayer,— 
Whatever tale in the bell is heard, 
He broods on his folded feet unstirred, 
Or, rising half in his rounded nest, 
He takes the time to smooth his breast; 
Then, drops again, with filmed eyes, 
And sleeps as the last vibration dies. 

Sweet bird ! I would that I could be 
A hermit in the crowd like thee ! 
With wings to fly to wood and glen, 

Thy lot, like mine, is cast with men; 

And, daily, with unwilhng feet, 

I tread, like thee, the crowded street; 

But, unlike me, when day is o'er. 

Thou canst dismiss the world, and soar; 

Or, at a half-felt wish for rest, 

Canst smooth the feathers on thy breast, 

And drop, forgetful, to thy nest. 
I would that, on such wings of gold, 

I could my weary heart upfold; 

I would I could look down unmoved, 

(Unloving as I am unloved) 

And while the world throngs on beneath, 



The Early Writers 107 

Smooth down my cares and calmly breathe; 
And, never sad with others' sadness, 
And, never glad with others' gladness, 
Listen, unstirred, to knell or chime. 
And, lapped in quiet, bide my time. 

Absalom 

The waters slept. Night's silvery veil hung low 
On Jordan's bosom, and the eddies curled 
Their glassy rings beneath it, like the still, 
Unbroken beating of the sleeper's pulse. 
The reeds bent down the stream ; the willow leaves, 
With a soft cheek upon the lulhng tide. 
Forgot the hfting winds; and the long stems, 
Whose flowers the water, hke a gentle nurse, 
Bears on its bosom, quietly gave way. 
And leaned in graceful attitudes to rest. 
How strikingly the course of nature tells, 
By its light heed of human suffering. 
That it was fashioned for a happier world ! 

King David's limbs were weary. He had fled 
From far Jerusalem; and now he stood. 
With his faint people, for a little rest. 
Upon the shore of Jordan. The Ught wind 
Of morn was stirring, and he bared his brow 
To its refreshing breath; for he had worn 
The mourner's covering, and he had not felt 
That he could see his people until now. 
They gathered round him on the fresh green bank. 
And spoke their kindly words; and, as the sun 
Rose up in heaven, he knelt among them there. 
And bowed his head upon his hands to pray. 
Oh ! when the heart is full, — when bitter thoughts 
Come crowding thickly up for utterance, 
And the poor common words of courtesy 
Are such an empty mockery,— how much 
The bursting heart may pour itself in prayer ! 



108 Atnerican Literature ' 

He prayed for Israel ; and his voice went up 

Strongly and fervently. He prayed for those 

Whose love had been his shield; and his deep tones 

Grew tremulous. But, oh ! for Absalom, — 

For his estranged, misguided Absalom, — 

The proud, bright being who had burst away 

In all his princely beauty, to defy 

The heart that cherished him, — for him he poured, 

In agony that would not be controlled, 

Strong supplication, and forgave him there, 

Before his God, for his deep sinfulness. 



The pall was settled. He who slept beneath 
Was straightened for the grave; and, as the folds 
Sunk to the still proportions, they betrayed 
The matchless symmetry of Absalom. 
His hair was yet unshorn, and silken curls 
Were floating round the tassels as they swayed 
To the admitted air, as glossy now 
As when, in hours of gentle dalUance, bathing 
The snowy fingers of Judea's daughters. 
His helm was at his feet; his banner, soiled 
With traiHng through Jerusalem, was laid. 
Reversed, beside him; and the jeweled hilt, 
Whose diamonds Ht the passage of his blade, 
Rested, like mockery, on his covered brow. 
The soldiers of the king trod to and fro, 
Clad in the garb of battle; and their chief, 
The mighty Joab, stood beside the bier, 
And gazed upon the dark pall steadfastly, 
As if he feared the slumberer might stir. 
A slow step startled him. He grasped his blade 
As if a trumpet rang; but the bent form 
Of David entered, and he gave command, 
In a low tone, to his few followers, 
And left him with his dead. The king stood still 
Till the last echo died; then, throwing off 
The sackcloth from his brow, and laying back 



The Early Writers 109 

The pall from the still features of his child, 
He bowed his head upon him, and broke forth 
In the resistless eloquence of woe: 

"Alas ! my noble boy ! that thou shouldst die ! 

Thou, who were made so beautifully fair ! 
That death should settle in thy glorious eye, 

And leave his stillness in this clustering hair ! 
How could he mark thee for the silent tomb. 

My proud boy, Absalom ! 

" Cold is thy brow, my son ! and I am chill 
As to my bosom I have tried to press thee ! 

How was I wont to feel my pulses thrill. 

Like a rich harp-string, yearning to caress thee, 

And hear thy sweet ' My father ! ' from these dumb 
And cold lips, Absalom ! 

"But death is on thee. I shall hear the gush 
Of music, and the voices of the young; 

And hfe will pass me in the mantling blush. 
And the dark tresses to the soft winds flung, — 

But thou no more, with thy sweet voice, shalt come 
To meet me, Absalom ! 

"And, oh ! when I am stricken, and my heart, 
Like a bruised reed, is waiting to be broken, 

How will its love for thee, as I depart. 

Yearn for thine ear to drink its last deep token ! 

It were so sweet, amid death's gathering gloom, 

' To see thee, Absalom ! 

"And now, farewell ! 'Tis hard to give thee up. 
With death so Hke a gentle slumber on thee; 

And thy dark sin ! — Oh ! I could drink the cup, 
If from this woe its bitterness had won thee. 

May God have called thee, like a wanderer, home, 
My lost boy, Absalom !" 



110 American Literature 

He covered up his face, and bowed himself 
A moment on his child; then, giving him 
A look of melting tenderness, he clasped 
His hands convulsively, as if in prayer ; - 
And, as if strength were given him of God, 
' He rose up calmly, and composed the pall 
Firmly and decently, and left him there, 
As if his rest had been a breathing sleep, 

9. William Gilmore Simms (1806-1870) was a talented 
Southern novelist and poet. His tales show the influence of 
Brown and Cooper. The Partisan, published in 1835, is num- 
bered among his best stories. One of his poems follows. 

The Lost Pleiad 

Not in the sky, 
Where it was seen 

So long in eminence of light serene, — 
Nor on the white tops of the glistering wave, 
Nor down, in mansions of the hidden deep, 
' Though beautiful in green 
And crystal, its great caves of mystery, — 
Shall the bright watcher have 
Her place, and, as of old, high station keep ! 

Gone ! gone ! 

Oh ! nevermore, to cheer 

The mariner, who holds his course alone 

On the Atlantic, through the weary night, 

When the stars turn to watchers, and do sleep, 

Shall it again appear. 

With the sweet-loving certainty of light, 

Down shining on the shut eyes of the deep ! 

The upward-looking shepherd on the hills 
Of Chaldea, night-returning with his flocks, 
He wonders why his beauty doth not blaze, 
Gladding his gaze, — 
And, from his dreary watch along the rocks, 



The Early Writers 111 

Guiding him homeward o'er the perilous ways ! 

How stands he waiting still, in a sad maze, 

Much wondering, whiie the drowsy silence fills 

The sorrowful vault ! — how hngers, in the hope that night 

May yet renew the expected and sweet light, 

So natural to his sight ! 

And lone, 

Where, at the first, in smiling love she shone. 

Brood the once happy circle of bright stars: 

How should they dream, until her fate was known, 

That they were ever confiscate to death ? 

That dark oblivion the pure beauty mars. 

And, like the earth, its common bloom and breath, 

That they should fall from high; 

Their lights grow blasted by a touch, and die, 

All their concerted springs of harmony 

Snapt rudely, and the generous music gone ! 

Ah ! still the strain 

Of wailing sweetness fills the saddening sky; 
The sister stars, lamenting in their pain 
That one of the selectest ones must die, — 
Must vanish, when most lovely, from the rest ! 
Alas ! 'tis ever thus the destiny. 
Even Rapture's song hath evermore a tone 
Of waiHng, as for bliss too quickly gone. 
The hope most precious is the soonest lost. 
The flower most sweet is first to feel the frost. 
Are not all short-Hved things the loveliest ? 
And, like the pale star, shooting down the sky, 
Look they not ever brightest, as they fly 
From the lone sphere they blest ? 

lo. Richard Henry Dana, Jr. (1815-1882) was born in Cam- 
bridge, Mass., and was educated at Harvard. While at college 
he interrupted his course to take a two years' voyage to the 
Pacific coast on account of his health. He shipped as a 
common sailor, and his experiences form the subject-matter of 
Two Years Before the Mast (1840), the book which has made 



112 American Literature 

his name famous. Mr. William J. Long calls this book a verita- 
ble classic and says: " After more than half a century we can 
still recommend it as a virile, wholesome story, and as probably 
the best reflection of sailor Hfe in the old days when American 
ships and seamen were known and honored the world over." 

A Flogging at Sea 

(From Two Years Before the Mast) 

(chapter xv) 

For several days the captain seemed very much out of 
humour. Nothing went right or fast enough for him. He 
quarrelled with the cook, and threatened to flog him for 
throwing wood on deck, and had a dispute with the mate 
about reeving a Spanish burton; the mate saying that he 
was right, and had been taught how to do it by a man 
who was a sailor! This the captain took in dudgeon and 
they were at swords' points at once. But his displeasure 
was chiefly turned against a large, heavy-moulded fellow 
from the Middle States, who was called Sam. This man 
hesitated in his speech, was rather slow in his motions, and 
was only a tolerably good sailor, but usually seemed to do 
his best; yet the captain took a dislike to tum, thought he 
was surly and lazy, and "if you once give a dog a bad 
name" — as the sailor-phrase is — "he may as well jump 
overboard." The captain found fault with everything this 
man did, and hazed him for dropping a marline-spike from 
the mainyard, where he was at work. This, of course, was 
an accident, but it was set down against him. The cap- 
tain was on board all day Friday, and everything went on 
hard and disagreeably. "The more you drive a man, the 
less he will do," was as true with us as with any other peo- 
ple. We worked late Friday night, and were turned-to 
early Saturday morning. About ten o'clock the captain 
ordered our new officer, Russell, who by this time had 
become thoroughly disliked by all the crew, to get the gig 
ready to take him ashore. John, the Swede, was sitting 
in the boat alongside, and Mr. Russell and I were standing 
by the main hatchway, waiting for the captain, who was 



The Early Writers 113 

down in the hold, where the crew were at work, when we 
heard his voice raised in violent dispute with somebody, 
whether it was with the mate or one of the crew I could not 
tell, and then came blows and scuffling. I ran to the side 
and beckoned to John, who came aboard, and we leaned 
down the hatchway, and though we could see no one, yet 
we knew that the captain had the advantage, for his voice 
was loud and clear — ^ 

''You see your condition! You see your condition! 
Will you ever give me any more of your jaw ? " No answer; 
and then came wrestling and heaving, as though the man 
was trying to turn him. "You may as well keep still, for 
I have got you," said the captain. Then came the ques- 
tion, "Will you ever give me any more of your jaw?" 

"I never gave you any, sir," said Sam; for it was his 
voice that we heard, though low and half choked. 

"That's not what I ask you. Will you ever be impu- 
dent to me again?" 

"I never have been, sir," said Sam. 

"Answer my question, or I'll make a spread eagle of 
you ! I'll flog you, by G — d." 

"I'm no negro slave," said Sam. 

"Then I'll make you one," said the captain; and he 
came to the hatchway, and sprang on deck, threw off his 
coat, and, rolling up his sleeves, cafled out to the mate: 
"Seize that man up, Mr. Amerzene ! Seize him up! 
Make a spread eagle of him! I'fl teach you ah who is 
master aboard!" 

The crew and officers followed the captain up the hatch- 
way; but it was not until after repeated orders that the 
mate laid hold of Sam, who made no resistance, and car- 
ried him to the gangway. 

"What are you going to flog that man for, sir?" said 
John, the Swede, to the captain. 

Upon hearing this, the captain turned upon John; but, 
knowing him to be quick and resolute, he ordered the 
steward to bring the irons, and, caUing upon Russell to 
help him, went up to John. 

"Let me alone," said John. "I'm wilHng to be put in 



114 American Literature 

irons. You need not use any force;" and, putting out his 
hands, the captain slipped the irons on, and sent him aft 
to the quarter-deck. Sam, by this time, was seized up, as 
it is called; that is placed against the shrouds, with his 
wrists made fast to them, his jacket off, and his back ex- 
posed. The captain stood on the break of the deck, a 
few feet from him, and a Httle raised, so as to have a good 
swing at him, and held in his hand the end of a thick, 
strong rope. The officers stood round, and the crew 
grouped together in the waist. All these preparations 
made me feel sick and almost faint, angry and excited as 
I was. A man — a human being, made in God's likeness — 
fastened up and flogged like a beast ! A man, too, whom 
I had lived with, eaten with, and stood watch with for 
months, and knew so well ! If a thought of resistance 
crossed the minds of any of the men, what was to be done ? 
Their time for it had gone by. Two men were fast, and 
there were left only two men besides Stimson and myself, 
and a small boy of ten or twelve years of age; and Stimson 
and I would not have joined the men in a mutiny, as they 
knew. And then, on the other side, there were (besides 
the captain) three officers, steward, agent, and clerk, and 
the cabin supplied with weapons. But besides the num- 
bers, what is there for sailors to do? If they resist, it is 
mutiny; and if they succeed, and take the vessel, it is 
piracy. If they ever yield again, their punishment must 
come; and if they do not yield, what are they to be for the 
rest of their lives? If a sailor resist his commander, he 
resists the law, and piracy or submission is his only alterna- 
tive. Bad as it was, they saw it must be borne. It is 
what a sailor ships for. Swinging the rope over his head, 
and bending his body so as to give it full force, the captain 
brought it down upon the poor fellow's back. Once, twice, 
— six times. "Will you ever give me any more of your 
jaw?" The man writhed with pain, but said not a word. 
Three times more. This was too much, and he muttered 
something which I could not hear; this brought as many 
more as the man could stand, when the captain ordered 
him to be cut down. 



The Early Writei^s 115 

"Now for you," said the captain, making up to John, 
and taking his irons off. As soon as John was loose, he 
ran forward to the forecastle. "Bring that man aft!" 
shouted the captain. The second mate, who had been in 
the forecastle with these men in the early part of the voy- 
age, stood still in the waist, and the mate walked slowly 
forward; but our third officer, anxious to show his zeal, 
sprang forward over the windlass, and laid hold of John; 
but John soon threw him from him. The captain stood on 
the quarter-deck, bareheaded, his eyes flashing with rage, 
and his face as red as blood, swinging the rope, and calling 
out to this officers, "Drag him aft! Lay hold of him! 
I'll sweeten him !" etc., etc. The mate now went forward, 
and told John quietly to go aft; and he, seeing resistance 
vain, threw the blackguard third mate from him, said he 
would go aft of himself, that they should not drag him, and 
went up to the gangway and held out his hands; but as 
soon as the captain began to make him fast, the indignity 
was too much, and he struggled; but, the mate and Rus- 
sell holding him, he was soon seized up. When he was 
made fast, he turned to the captain, who stood rolling up 
his sleeves, getting ready for the blow, and asked him what 
he was to be flogged for. "Have I ever refused my duty, 
sir? Have you ever known me to hang back or to be in- 
solent, or not to know my work?" 

"No," said the captain, "it is not that that I flog you 
for; I flog you for your interference, for asking ques- 
tions." 

"Can't a man ask a question here without being 
flogged?" 

"No," shouted the captain; "nobody shall open his 
mouth aboard this vessel but myself"; and he began lay- 
ing the blows upon his back, swinging half round between 
each blow, to give it full effect. As he went on his passion 
increased, and he danced about the deck, calling out, as 
he swung the rope, "If you want to know what I flog you 
for, I'fl tell you. It's because I like to do it ! because I like 
to do it ! It suits me ! That's what I do it for !" 

The man writhed under the pain until he could endure 



116 Ajnerican Literature 

it no longer, when he called out, with an exclamation more 
common among foreigners than with us: "O Jesus Christ! 
O Jesus Christ!" 

"Don't call on Jesus Christ," shouted the captain; ^^He 
can't help you. Call on Frank Thompson ! He's the man ! 
He can help you ! Jesus Christ can't help you now !" 

At these words, which I never shall forget, my blood ran 
cold. I could look on no longer. Disgusted, sick, I turned 
away, and leaned over the rail, and looked down into the 
water. A few rapid thoughts, I don't know what — our 
situation, a resolution to see the captain punished when 
we got home — crossed my mind; but the falling of the 
blows and the cries of the man called me back once more. 
At length they ceased, and, turning round, I found that 
the mate, at a signal from the captain, had cast him loose. 
Almost doubled up with pain, the man walked slowly for- 
ward, and went down into the forecastle. Every one else 
stood still at his post, while the captain, swelling with rage 
and with the importance of his achievement, walked the 
quarter-deck, and at each turn, as he came forward, call- 
ing out to us: "You see your condition! You see where 
I've got you all, and you know what to expect ! You've 
been mistaken in me ! You didn't know what I was ! 
Now you know what I am ! I'll make you toe the mark, 
every soul of you, or I'll flog you all, fore and aft, from the 
boy up ! You've got a driver over you ! Yes, a slave- 
driver — a nigger-driver ! I'll see who'll tell me he isn't a 
NIGGER slave!" With this and the like matter, equally 
calculated to quiet us, and to allay any apprehensions of 
future trouble, he entertained us for about ten minutes, 
when he went below. Soon after, John came aft, with his 
bare back covered with stripes and wales in every direc- 
tion, and dreadfully swollen, and asked the steward to 
ask the captain to let him have some salve, or balsam, to 
put upon it. "No," said the captain, who heard him from 
below; "tell him to put his shirt on; that's the best thing 
for him, and pull me ashore in the boat. Nobody is going 
to lay-up on board this vessel." He then called to Mr. 
Russell to take those two men and two others in the boat. 



The Early Writers 117 

and pull him ashore. I went for one. The two men could 
hardly bend their backs, and the captain called to them to 
"give way!" but finding they did their best, he let them 
alone. The agent was in the stern sheets, but during the 
whole pull — a league or more — not a word was spoken. 
We landed; the captain, agent, and officer went up to the 
house, and left us with the boat. I and the man with me 
stayed near the boat, while John and Sam walked slowly 
away, and sat down on the rocks. They talked some time 
together, but at length separated, each sitting alone. I 
had some fears of John. He was a foreigner, and violently 
tempered, and under suffering; and he had his knife with 
him, and the captain was to come down alone to the boat. 
But nothing happened; and we went quietly on board. 
The captain was probably armed, and if either of them 
had Hfted a hand against him, they would have had noth- 
ing before them but flight, and starvation in the woods 
of Cahfornia, or capture by the soldiers and Indians, 
whom the offer of twenty dollars would have set upon 
them. 

After the day's work was done we went down into the 
forecastle and ate our plain supper; but not a word was 
spoken. It was Saturday night; but, there was no song 
• — no "sweethearts and wives." A gloom was over every- 
thing. The two men lay in their berths, groaning with 
pain, and we all turned in, but, for myself, not to sleep. 
A sound coming now and then from the berths of the two 
men showed that they were awake, as awake they must 
have been, for they could hardly lie in one posture long; 
the dim swinging lamp shed its Hght over the dark hole in 
which we Hved, and many and various reflections and pur- 
poses coursed through my mind. I had no real apprehen- 
sion that the captain would lay a hand on me; but our 
situation, living under a tyranny, with an ungoverned, 
swaggering fellow administering it; of the character of the 
country we were in; the length of the voyage; the uncer- 
tainty attending our return to America; and then, if we 
should return, the prospect of obtaining justice and satis- 
faction for these poor men ; and I vowed that, if God should 



118 Ainerican Literature 

ever give me the means, I would do something to redress 
the grievances and relieve the sufferings of that class of 
beings with whom my lot had so long been cast. . . . 

II. Rev. Samuel F. Smith (i 808-1 895) is remembered 
to-day for his song America, which was published in 1832. 

America 

My country, 'tis of thee, 
Sweet land of Hberty, 

Of thee I sing; 
Land where my fathers died. 
Land of the pilgrims' pride. 
From every mountain-side 

Let freedom ring. 

My native country, thee. 
Land of the noble free,— 

Thy name I love; 
I love thy rocks and rills. 
Thy woods and templed hills; 
My heart with rapture thrills 

Like^that above. 

Let music swell the breeze, 
And ring from all the trees, 

Sweet freedom's song; 
Let mortal tongues awake. 
Let all that breathe partake. 
Let rocks their silence break, — 

The sound prolong. 

Our fathers' God, to Thee, 
Author of Hberty, 

To Thee we sing; 
Long may our land be bright 
With freedom's holy light; 
Protect us by thy might. 

Great God, our King. 



The Early Writers 119 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

I. For Further Illustration 

Bryant, W. C. : Library of Poetry and Song. 

Dana, R. H., Jr.: Two Years Before the Mast. 

Long, G. W.: American Poems. (1776-1900.) 

Simms, W. G. : The Partisan. 

Stedman, E. C: An American Anthology. 

Stedman and Hutchinson: Library of American Literature. 

Willis, N. P.: Andrews Request to Washington. The Torn Hat. 

II. For Collateral Reading 

Holmes, O. W.: The Boys. (Contains a humorous reference to 

Smith's America.) 
Lowell, J. R.: Fable for Critics. (On Halleck and Willis.) 
Whittier, J. G.: Fitz-Greene Halleck. 



J 



CHAPTER IV 
WRITERS OF THE MID-CENTURY AND AFTER 

/. Great Names 

The mid-century discovers a remarkable group of writers 
in New England, and the literary centre of America shifts 
from New York to Cambridge. The most distinguished 
names in American literature are found in this brilliant 
group of New England authors, and their achievements so 
far outclass anything else in the realm of American litera- 
ture before or since that the period of their activity is often 
called the golden age of American letters. Yet the fact is 
patent that, while the stature of these men assumes noble 
proportions when compared with that of other writers na- 
tive th, American soil, it does not measure up to the size of 
the great Victorian poets and prose-writers. This is said 
with no lack of appreciation for the positive worth of the 
contribution that the New England grOup made to American 
literature. 

At this time the influence of Goethe, Coleridge, and Car- 
lyle was dominant in the works of our leaders of culture. 
Literary men "thought and talked and wrote upon truths 
which cannot be demonstrated, which lie beyond the sphere 
of the established, which transcend human experience and 
ordinary knowledge," says Professor Simonds. Hence they> 
are known as Transcendentalists. Chief among them was 
Ralph Waldo Emerson. 

I. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803- 1882) was born in Boston 
and educated at Harvard. After graduation he taught school 
120 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 121 

for a while and then studied for the ministry. He was or- 
dained and given charge of the historic Old North Church, 
where the Mathers had preached in colonial days. This had 
now become the most important pulpit of the Unitarians. But 
Emerson could not agree even with the liberal tenets of the 
Unitarians, so he withdj^ew from the church. He then went 
abroad for his health. While in England he visited Carlyle with 
whom he formed a friendship which lasted through life. On 
his return to America he settled in Concord, where he lived 
quietly for the rest of his days. Mr. Barrett Wendell asserts 
that Emerson was " by far the most eminent figure among the 
Transcendentalists, if not, indeed, in all the literary history 
of America." Of all American writers he is probably the most 
inspiring to the young. The bulk of his writings is in the form 
of essays, many of which were delivered as lectures, but he 
wrote poems now and then all through his life. Of his ability 
as a poet he himself says: " I am a born poet, of a low class, 
without doubt, yet a poet. That is my nature and my voca- 
tion." Though most critics agree that his verse is too intel- 
lectual, Stedman calls hini " our most typical and inspiring 
poet." He had a genius for the happy word and his essays 
teem with epigrams such as, "Never read any book that is not a 
year old," "Never read any but famed books," "Never read any 
but what you like," "Hitch your wagon to a star," and the like. 
With him, most emphatically, the style is the man. 

(From The American Scholar) 

(This address was delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa 
Society of Harvard, August 31, 1837. Holmes calls it 
"our intellectual Declaration of Independence," and 
Lowell says: "The eflfect produced upon the audience by 
its delivery was without any parallel in our literary annals, 
a scene to be always treasured in the memory for its pic- 
turesqueness and its inspiration.") 

I. The first in time and the first in importance of the 
influences upon the mind is that of nature. Every day, 
the sun; and, after sunset, Night and her stars. Ever the 
winds blow; ever the grass grows. Every day, men and 
women, conversing, beholding and beholden. The scholar 



V22 American Literature 

is he of all men whom this spectacle most engages. He 
must settle its value in his mind. What is nature to him ? 
There is never a beginning, there is never an end, to the 
inexplicable continuity of this web of God, but always cir- 
cular power returning into itself. Therein it resembles his 
own spirit, whose beginning, whose ending, he never can 
find, — so entire, so boundless. Far too as her splendours 
shine, system on system shooting Uke rays, upward, down- 
ward, without centre, without circumference, — in the mass 
and in the particle, Nature hastens to render account of her- 
self to the mind. Classification begins. To the young mind 
every thing is individual, stands by itself. By and by, it 
finds how to join two things and see in them one nature; 
then three, then three thousand; and so, tyrannized over 
by its own unifying instinct, it goes on tying things together, 
diminishing anomahes, discovering roots running under 
ground whereby contrary and remote things cohere and 
flower out from one stem. It presently learns that since 
the dawn of history there has been a constant accumulation 
and classifying of facts. But what is classification but the 
perceiving that these objects are not chaotic, and are not 
foreign, but have a law which is also a law of the human 
mind? The astronomer discovers that geometry, a pure 
abstraction of the human mind, is the measure of plane- 
tary motion. The chemist finds proportions and intelli- 
gible method throughout matter; and science is nothing 
but the finding of analogy, identity, in the most remote 
parts. The ambitious soul sits down before each refrac- 
tory fact; one after another reduces all strange constitu- 
tions, all new powers, to their class and their law, and goes 
on forever to animate the last fibre of organization, the out- 
skirts of nature, by insight. 

Thus to him, to this school-boy under the bending dome 
of day, is suggested that he and it proceed from one root; 
one is leaf and one is flower; relation, sympathy, stirring 
in every vein. And what is that root? Is not that the 
soul of his soul? A thought too bold; a dream too wild. 
Yet when this spiritual light shall have revealed the law 
of more earthly natures, — when he has learned to worship 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 123 

the soul, and to see that the natural philosophy that now 
is, is only the first gropings of its gigantic hand, he shall 
look forward to an ever expanding knowledge as to a be- 
coming creator. He shall see that nature is the opposite 
of the soul, answering to it part for part. One is seal and 
one is print. Its beauty is the beauty of his own mind. 
Its laws are the laws of his own mind. Nature then be- 
comes to him the measure of his attainments. So much 
of nature as he is ignorant of, so much of his own mind 
does he not yet possess. And, in fine, the ancient precept, 
"Know thyself," and the modern precept, "Study nature," 
become at last one maxim. 

II. The next great influence into the spirit of the scholar 
is the mind of the Past, — in whatever form, whether of 
literature, of art, of institutions, that mind is inscribed. 
Books are the best type of the influence of the past, and 
perhaps we shall get at the truth, — learn the amount of 
this influence more conveniently, — by considering their 
value alone. 

The theory of books is noble. The scholar of the first 
age received into him the world around; brooded thereon; 
gave it the new arrangement of liis own mind, and uttered 
it again. It came into him life; it went out from him truth. 
It came to him short-lived actions; it went out from him 
immortal thoughts. It came to him business; it went from 
him poetry. It was dead fact; now, it is quick thought. 
It can stand, and it can go. It now endures, it now flies, 
it now inspires. Precisely in proportion to the depth of 
mind from which it issued, so high does it soar, so long 
does it sing. 

Or, I might say, it depends on how far the process had 
gone, of transmuting life into truth. In proportion to the 
completeness of the distillation, so will the purity and im- 
perishableness of the product be. But none is quite per- 
fect. As no air-pump can by any means make a perfect 
vacuum, so neither can any artist entirely exclude the con- 
ventional, the local, the perishable from his book, or write 
a book of pure thought, that shall be as efficient, in all re- 
spects, to a remote posterity, as to contemporaries, or 



124 A'me?ican Literature 

rather to the second age. Each age, it is found, must 
write its own books; or rather, each generation for the next 
succeeding. The bouks of an older period will not lit this. 

Yet hence arises a grave mischief. The sacredness 
which attaches to the act of creation, the act of thought, 
is transferred to the record. The poet chanting was felt 
to be a divine nan: henceforth the chant is divine also. 
The writer was a just and wise spirit: henceforward it is 
settled the book is perfect; as love of the hero corrupts 
into worship of his statue. Instantly the book becomes 
noxious: the guide is a tyrant. The sluggish and perverted 
mind of the multitude, slow to open to the incursions of 
Reason, having once so opened, having once received this 
book, stands upon it, and makes an outcry if it is disparaged. 
Colleges are built on it. Books are written on it by think- 
ers, not by Man Thinking; by men of talent, that is, who 
start wrong, who set out from accepted dogmas, not from 
their own sight of principles. Meek young men grow up in 
Ubraries, believing it their duty to accept the views which 
Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given; forgetful 
that Cicero, Locke, and "^aron were only young men in 
libraries when they wrote hese books. 

Hence, instead of Man Thinking, we have the bookworm. 
Hence the book-learned class, who value books, as such; 
not as related to nature and the human constitution, but 
as making a sort of Third Estate with the world and the 
soul. Hence the restorers of readings, the emendators, the 
bibliomaniacs of all degrees. 

Books are the best of things, well used; abused, among 
the worst. What is the right use? What is the one end 
which all means go to effect? They are for nothing but 
to inspire. I had better never see a book than to be warped 
by its attraction clean out of my own orbit, and made a 
satellite instead of a system. The one thing in the world, 
of value, is the active soul. This every man is entitled to; 
'this every man contains within him, although in almost all 
men obstructed, and as yet unborn. The soul active sees 
absolute truth and utters truth, or creates. In this action 
it is genius; not the privilege of here and there a favourite, 



Wiiters of the Mid- Century and After 125 

but the sound estate of every man. In its essence it is 
progressive. The book, the college, the school of art, the 
institution of any kind, stop with some past utterance of 
genius. This is good, say they, — let us hold by this. They 
pin me down. They look backward and not forward. But 
genius looks forward: the eyes of man are set in his fore- 
head, not in his hindhead: man hopes: genius creates. 
Whatever talents may be, if the man create not, the pure 
efflux of the Deity is not his; — cinders and smoke there 
may be, but not yet flame. There are creative manners, 
there are creative actions, and creative words; manners, 
actions, words, that is, indicative of no custom or authority, 
but springing spontaneous from the mind's own sense of 
good and fair. 

On the other part, instead of being its own seer, let it 
receive from another mind its truth, though it were in 
torrents of Hght, without periods of sohtude, inquest and 
self-recovery, and a fatal disservice is done. Genius is 
always sufficiently the enemy of genius by over-influence. 
The Uterature of every nation bears me witness. The 
English dramatic poets have Shakespearized now for two 
hundred years. 

Undoubtedly there is a right way of reading, so it be 
sternly subordinated. Man Thinking must not be subdued 
by his instruments. Books are for the scholar's idle times. 
When he can read God directly, the hour is too precious to 
be wasted in other men's transcripts of their readings. 
But when the intervals of darkness come, as come they 
must, — when the sun is tid and the stars withdraw their 
shining, — we repair to the lamps which were kindled by 
their ray, to guide our steps to the East again, where the 
dawn is. We hear, that we may speak. The Arabian 
proverb says, ''A fig tree, looking on a fig tree, becometh 
fruitful." 

It is remarkable, the character of the pleasure we derive 
from the best books. They impress us with the conviction 
that one natu re wrote and the same read^ We read the 
verses of one of the great English poets, of Chaucer, of 
Marvell, of Dryden, with the most modern joy, — with a 



126 American Literature 

pleasure, I mean, which is in great part caused by the ab- 
straction of all time from their verses. There is some awe 
mixed with the joy of our surprise, when this poet, who 
lived HI some past world, two or three hundred years ago, 
says that which hes close to my soul, that which I also had 
well-nigh thought and said. But for the evidence thence 
afforded to the philosophical doctrine of the identity of all 
minds, we should suppose some pre-established harmony, 
some foresight of souls that were to be, and some prepara- 
tion of stores for their future wants, like the fact observed 
in insects, who lay up food before death for the young grub 
they shall never see. 



There goes in the world a notion that the scholar should 
be a recluse, a valetudinarian, — as unfit for any handiwork 
or pubUc labour as a penknife for an axe. The so-called 
"practical men" sneer at speculative men, as if , because 
they speculate or see, they could do nothing. I have heard 
it said that the clergy, — who are always more universally 
than any other class, the scholars of their day, — are ad- 
dressed as women; that the rough spontaneous conversa- 
tion of men they do not hear, but only a mincing and diluted 
speech. They are often virtually disfranchised; and in- 
deed there are advocates for their cehbacy. As far as this 
is true of the studious classes, it is not just and wise. 
Action is with the scholar subordinate, but it is essential. 
Without it he is not yet man. Without it thought can 
never ripen into truth. Whilst the world hangs before 
the eye as a cloud of beauty, we cannot even see its beauty. 
Inaction is cowardice, but there can be no scholar without 
the heroic mind. The preamble of thought, the transition 
through which it passes from the unconscious to the con- 
scious, is action. Only so much do I know, as I have 
lived. Instantly we know whose words are loaded with 
life, and whose not. 

The world — this shadow of the soul, or other me, hes 
wide around. Its attractions are the keys which unlock 
my thoughts and make me acquainted with myself. I run 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 127 

eagerly into this resounding tumult. I grasp the hands of 
those next me, and take my place in the ring to suffer and 
to work, taught by an instinct that so shall the dumb abyss 
be vocal with speech. ... So much only of life as I know 
by experience, so much of the wilderness have I vanquished 
and planted, or so far have I extended my being, my do- 
minion. I do not see how any man can afford, for the 
sake of his nerves and his nap, to spare any action in 
which he can partake. It is pearls and rubies to his 
discourse. Drudgery, calamity, exasperation, want, are 
instructors in eloquence and wisdom. The true scholar 
grudges every opportunity of action past by, as a loss of 
power. 

It is the raw material out of which the intellect moulds 
her splendid products. A strange process too, this by 
which experience is converted into thought, as a mulberry 
leaf is converted into satin. The manufacture goes for- 
ward at all hours. 



Of course, he who has put forth his total strength in fit 
action has the richest return of wisdom. I will not shut 
myself out of this globe of action, and transplant an oak 
into a flower-pot, there to hunger and pine; nor trust the 
revenue of some single faculty, and exhaust one vein of 
thought, much like those Savoyards, who, getting their 
livelihood by carving shepherds, shepherdesses, and smok- 
ing Dutchmen, for all Europe, went out one day to the 
mountain to find stock, and discovered that they had whit- 
tled up the last of their pine-trees. Authors we have, in 
numbers, who have written out their vein, and who, moved 
by a commendable prudence, sail to Greece or Palestine, 
follow the trapper into the prairie, or ramble round Algiers, 
to replenish their merchantable stock. 

If it were only for a vocabulary, the scholar would be 
covetous of action. Life is our dictionary. Years are well 
spent in country labours; in town, in the insight into trades 
and manufactures; in frank intercourse with many men 
and women; in science; in art; to the one end of master- 



128 American Literature 

ing in all their facts a language by which to illustrate and 
embody our perceptions. I learn immediately from any 
speaker how much he has already Uved, through the pov- 
erty or the splendour of his speech. Life Hes behind us as 
the quarry from whence we get tiles and cope-stones for 
the masonry of to-day. This is the way to learn grammar. 
Colleges and books only copy the language which the field 
and the work-yard made. 

But the final value of action, like that of books, and 
better than books, is, that it is a resource. . . . 

The mind now thinks, now acts; and each fit reproduces 
the other. When the artist has exhausted his materials, 
when the fancy no longer paints, when thoughts are no 
longer apprehended and books are a weariness, — he has 
always the resource to live. Character is higher than in- 
tellect. Thinking is the function. Living is the function- 
ary. The stream retreats to its source. A great soul 
will be strong to live, as well as strong to think. Does he 
lack organ or medium to impart his truths? He can still 
fall back on this elemental force of living them. This is a 
total act. Thinking is a partial act. Let the grandeur of 
justice shine in his affairs. Let the beauty of affection 
cheer his lowly roof. Those "far from fame," who dwell 
and act with him, will feel the force of his constitution in 
the doings and passages of the day better than it can be 
measured by any pubhc and designed display. Time shall 
teach him that the scholar loses no hour which the man 
lives. Herein he unfolds the sacred germ of his instinct, 
screened from influence. What is lost in seemliness is 
gained in strength. Not out of those on whom systems of 
education have exhausted their culture, comes the helpful 
giant to destroy the old or to build the new, but out of un- 
handselled savage nature; out of terrible Druids and Ber- 
serkers come at last Alfred and Shakespeare. 

I hear, therefore, with joy whatever is beginning to be 
said of the dignity and necessity of labour to every citizen. 
There is virtue yet in the hoe and the spade, for learned as 
well as for unlearned hands. And labour is everywhere 
welcome; always we are invited to work; only be this 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 129 

limitation observed, that a man shall not for the sake of 
wider activity sacrifice any opinion to the popular judgments 
and modes of action. 



Concord Hymn 
sung at the completion of the battle monument, 

APRIL 19, 1836 

By the rude bridge that arched the flood, 
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, 

Here once the embattled farmers stood, 
And fired the shot heard round the world. 

\ 

The foe long since in silence slept; 

Alike the conqueror silent sleeps; 
And Time the ruined bridge has swept 

Down the dark stream which seaward creeps. 

On this green bank, by this soft stream, 

We set to-day a votive stone; 
That memory may their deed redeem, 

When, like our sires, our sons are gone. 

Spirit, that made those heroes dare 
To die, and leave their children free, 

Bid Time and Nature gently spare 
The shaft we raise to them and thee. 

Each and All 

Little thinks, in the field, yon red-cloaked clown, 

Of thee from the hill- top looking down; 

The heifer, that lows in the upland farm, 

Far-heard, lows not thine ear to charm; 

The sexton tolling the bell at noon. 

Dreams not that great Napoleon 

Stops his horse, and lists with delight. 

Whilst his files sweep round yon Alpine height; 



130 American Literature 

Nor knowest thou what argument 
Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent: 
All are needed by each one, 
Nothing is fair or good alone. 

I thought the sparrow's note from heaven, 
Singing at dawn on the alder bough; 
I brought him home in his nest at even; 
He sings the song, but it pleases not now; 
For I did not bring home the river and sky; 
_He sang to my ear; they sang to my eye. 
The delicate shells lay on the shore; 
The bubbles of the latest wave 
Fresh pearls to their enamel gave; 
And the bellowing of the savage sea 
Greeted their safe escape to me; 
I wiped away the weeds and foam, 
I fetched my sea-born treasures home; 
But the poor, unsightly, noisome things 
Had left their beauty on the shore 
With the sun and the sand and the wild uproar. 

The lover watched his graceful maid 

As 'mid the virgin train she strayed, 

Nor knew her beauty's best attire 

Was woven still by the snow-white quire, 

At last she came to his hermitage. 

Like the bird from the woodlands to the cage, 

The gay enchantment was undone, 

A gentle wife, but fairy none. 

Then I said, "I covet Truth ;- 

Beauty is unripe childhood's cheat, — 

I leave it behind with the games of youth." 

As I spoke, beneath my feet 

The ground-pine curled its pretty wreath, 

Running over the club-moss burrs; 

I inhaled the violet's breath; 

Around me stood the oaks and firs; 

Pine-cones and acorns lay on the ground; 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 131 

Above me soared the eternal sky, 

Full of light and of deity; 

Again I saw, again I heard, 

The rolHng river, the morning bird; — 

Beauty through my senses stole, 

I yielded myself to the perfect whole. 

2. Henry D. Thoreau (1817-1862) was a Harvard graduate 
who became famous for his semipoetic, semiscientific studies 
of nature. A devoted lover of the open, he lived the simple 
life alone for two years in a cabin which he built himself on the 
shore of Walden Pond. The careful observations which he 
made while living there form the subject-matter of Walden, his 
most important contribution to American letters. 

The Battle of the Ants 

(From Walden, chapter XII, "Brute Neighbors") 

One day when I went out to my wood-pile, or rather my 
pile of stumps, I observed two large ants, the one red, 
the other much larger, nearly half an inch long, and black, 
fiercely contending with one another. Having once got 
hold they never let go, but struggled and wrestled and 
rolled on the chips incessantly. Looking farther, I was 
surprised to find that the chips were covered with such 
combatants, that it was not a duellum, but a helium, a war 
between two races of ants, the red always pitted against 
the black, and frequently two red ones to one black. The 
legions of these Myrmidons covered all the hills and vales 
in my wood-yard, and the ground was already strewn 
with the dead and dying, both red and black. It was the 
only battle which I have ever witnessed, the only battle- 
field I ever trod while the battle was raging; internecine 
war; the red repubHcans on the one hand, and the black 
imperiahsts on the oth^r. On every side they were en- 
gaged in deadly combat, yet without any noise that I 
could hear, and human soldiers never fought so resolutely. 
I watched a couple that were fast locked in each other's 
embraces, in a httle sunny valley amid the chips, now at 
noon-day prepared to fight till the sun went down, or Ufe 



132 American Literature 

went out. The smaller red champion had fastened him- 
self like a vice to his adversary's front, and through all the 
tumbhngs on that field never for an instant ceased to 
gnaw at one of his feelers near the root, having already 
caused the other to go by the board; while the stronger 
black one dashed him from side to side, and, as I saw on 
looking, had already divested him of several of his mem- 
bers. They fought with more pertinacity than bull-dogs. 
Neither manifested the least disposition to retreat. It 
was evident that their battle-cry was Conquer or die. In 
the mean while there came along a single red ant on the 
hill-side of this valley, evidently full of excitement, who 
either had despatched his foe, or had not yet taken part in 
the battle; probably the latter, for he had lost none of his 
limbs; whose mother had charged him to return with his 
shield or upon it. Or perchance he was some Achilles, 
who had nourished his wrath apart, and had now come to 
avenge or rescue his Patroclus. He saw this unequal 
combat from afar, — for the blacks were nearly twice the 
size of the reds, — he drew near with rapid pace till he 
stood on his guard within half an inch of the combatants; 
then, watching his opportunity, he sprang upon the black 
warrior, and commenced his operations near the root of 
his right fore-leg, leaving the foe to select among his own 
members; and so there were three united for life, as if a 
new kind of attraction had been invented which put all 
other locks and cements to shame. I should not have 
wondered by this time to find that they had their respec- 
tive musical bands stationed on some eminent chip, and 
playing their national airs the while, to excite the slow and 
cheer the dying combatants. I was myself excited some- 
what even as if they had been men. The more you think 
of it, the less the difference. And certainly there is not 
the fight recorded in Concord history, at least, if in the 
history of America, that will bear a moment's comparison 
with this, whether for the numbers engaged in it, or for the 
patriotism and heroism displayed. For numbers and for 
carnage it was an Austerlitz or Dresden. Concord Fight ! 
Two killed on the patriot's side, and Luther Blanchard 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 133 

wounded! Why here every ant was a Buttrick, — "Fire! 
for God's sake, fire!" — and thousands shared the fate of 
Davis and Hosmer. There was not one hirehng there. I 
have no doubt that it was a principle they fought for, as 
much as our ancestors, and not to avoid a three-penny tax 
on their tea; and the results of this battle will be as impor- 
tant and memorable to those whom it concerns as those of 
the battle of Bunker Plill, at least. 

I took up the chip on which the three I have partic- 
ularly described were struggling, carried it into my house, 
and placed it under a tumbler on my window-sill, in order to 
see the issue. Holding a microscope to the first-mentioned 
red ant, I saw that, though he was assiduously gnawing 
at the near fore-leg of his enemy, having severed his re- 
maining feeler, his own breast was all torn away, exposing 
what vitals he had there to the jaws of the black warrior, 
whose breast-plate was apparently too thick for him to 
pierce; and the dark carbuncles of the sufferer's eyes 
shone with ferocity such as war only could excite. They 
struggled half an hour longer under the tumbler, and when 
I looked again the black soldier had severed the heads of 
his foes from their bodies, and the still living heads were 
hanging on either side of him like ghastly trophies at his 
saddle-bow, still apparently as firmly fastened as ever, and 
he was endeavoring with feeble struggles, being without 
feelers and with only the remnant of a leg, and I know 
not how many other wounds, to divest himself of them; 
which at length, after half an hour more, he accompHshed. 
I raised the glass, and he went off over the window-sill 
in that crippled state. Whether he finally survived that 
combat, and spent the remainder of his days in some 
Hotel des Invalides, I do not know; but I thought that his 
industry would not be worth much thereafter. I never 
learned which party was victorious, nor the cause of the 
war; but I felt for the rest of that day as if I had had my 
feehngs excited and harrowed by witnessing the struggle, 
the ferocity and carnage, of a human battle before my door. 

3. Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) is "the most com- 
manding figure that America has produced in the field of ro- 



134 Amei'ican Literature 

mance" according to Professor Shiionds. He was a graduate 
of Bowdoin College and lived much of his life at Concord and 
Salem. By nature he was a recluse; " his soul was like a star 
and dwelt apart." " Beyond any one else," says Professor 
Barrett Wendell, "he expresses the deepest temper of that New 
England race which brought him forth, and which now, at least 
in the phases we have known, seems vanishing from the earth." 
Mr. Henry James declares The Scarlet Letter to be "the finest 
piece of imaginative writing yet put forth in this country." 
And by some critics Hawthorne's style is considered superior to 
that of all other American writers of fiction. 

The Ambitious Guest 
(From Twice Told Tales) 

One September night, a family had gathered round their 
hearth, and piled it high with the drift-wood of mountain 
streams, the dry cones of the pine, and the splintered ruins 
of great trees, that had come crashing down the precipice. 
Up the chimney roared the fire, and brightened the room 
with its broad blaze. The faces of the father and mother 
had a sober gladness; the children laughed; the eldest 
daughter was the image of Happiness at seventeen; and 
the aged grandmother, who sat knitting in the warmest 
place, was the image of Happiness grown old. They had 
found the "herb, heart's-ease," in the bleakest spot of all 
New England. This family were situated in the Notch of 
the White Hills, where the wind was sharp throughout the 
year, and pitilessly cold in the winter, — giving their cot- 
tage all its fresh inclemency, before it descended on the 
valley of the Saco. They dwelt in a cold spot and a dan- 
gerous one; for a mountain towered above their heads, 
so steep, that the stones would often rumble down its 
sides, and startle them at midnight. 

The daughter had just uttered some simple jest, that 
filled them all with mirth, when the wind came through 
the Notch and seemed to pause before their cottage, — 
rattling the door, with a sound of waiUng and lamentation, 
before it passed into the valley. For a moment, it sad- 
dened them, though there was nothing unusual in the 
tones. But the family were glad again, when they per- 



JVriters of the Mid- Century and After 135 

ceived that the latch was lifted by some traveller, whose 
footsteps had been unheard amid the dreary blast, which 
heralded his approach, and wailed as he was entering, and 
went moaning away from the door. 



The door was opened by a young man. His face at first 
wore the melancholy expression, almost despondency, of 
one who travels a wild and bleak road, at nightfall and 
alone, but soon brightened up, when he saw the kindly 
warmth of his reception. He felt his heart spring forward 
to meet them all, from the old woman, who wiped a chair 
with her apron, to the little child that held out its arms to 
him. One glance and smile placed the stranger on a foot- 
ing of innocent famiHarity with the eldest daughter. 

"Ah, this fire is the right thing!" cried he; "especially 
when there is such a pleasant circle round it. I am quite 
benumbed; for the Notch is just like the pipe of a great 
pair of bellows; it has blown a terrible blast in my face, 
all the way from Bartlett." 

"Then you are going towards Vermont?" said the mas- 
ter of the house, as he helped to take a light knapsack off 
the yoimg man's shoulders. 

"Yes; to BurHngton, and far enough beyond," replied 
he. "I meant to have been at Ethan Crawford's to-night; 
but a pedestrian fingers along such a road as this. It is 
no matter; for, when I saw this good fire, and all your 
cheerful faces, I felt as if you had kindled it on purpose for 
me, and were waiting my arrival. So I shall sit down 
among you, and make myself at home." 

The frank-hearted stranger had just drawn his chair to 
the fire, when something like a heavy footstep was heard 
without, rushing down the steep side of the mountain, as 
with long and rapid strides, and taking such a leap, in 
passing the cottage, as to strike the opposite precipice. 
The family held their breath, because they knew the sound, 
and their guest held his, by instinct. 

"The old mountain has thrown a stone at us, for fear 
we should forget him," said the landlord, recovering him- 
self. "He sometimes nods his head, and threatens to come 



136 American Literature 

down; but we are old neighbors, and agree together pretty 
well, upon the whole. Besides, we have a sure place of 
refuge, hard by, if he should be coming in good earnest." 

. . . [The stranger] was of a proud, yet gentle spirit, — 
haughty and reserved among the rich and great; but ever 
ready to stoop his head to the lowly cottage door, and be 
like a brother or a son at the poor man's fireside. . . . 
But, this evening, a prophetic sympathy impelled the 
refined and educated youth to pour out his heart before the 
simple mountaineers, and constrained them to answer him 
with the same free confidence. And thus it should have 
been. Is not the kindred of a common fate a closer tie 
than that of birth ? 

The secret of the young man's character was a high and 
abstracted ambition. He could have borne to Uve an 
undistinguished life, but not to be forgotten in the grave. 
Yearning desire had been transformed to hope; and hope, 
long cherished, had become hke certainty, that, obscurely 
as he journeyed now, a glory was to beam on all his path- 
way, — though not, perhaps, while he was treading it. 
But, when posterity should gaze back into the gloom of 
what was now the present, they would trace the brightness 
of his footsteps, brightening as meaner glories faded, and 
confess, that a gifted one had passed from his cradle to 
his tomb, with none to recognize him. 

"As yet," cried the stranger, his cheek glowing and his 
eyes flashing with enthusiasm, — ''as yet, I have done 
nothing. Were I to vanish from the earth to-morrow, 
none would know so much of me as you; that a nameless 
youth came up, at nightfall, from the valley of the Saco, 
and opened his heart to you in the evening, and passed 
through the Notch, by sunrise, and was seen no more. 
Not a soul would ask, 'Who was he? Whither did the 
wanderer go?' But I cannot die till I have achieved 
my destiny. Then let Death come! I shall have built 
my monument!" 



"You laugh at me," said he, taking the eldest daughter's 
hand, and laughing himself. "You think my ambition as 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 137 

nonsensical as if I were to freeze myself to death on the top 
of Mount Washington, only that people might spy at me 
from the country round about. And truly, that would be 
a noble pedestal for a man's statue !" 

"It is better to sit here by this fire," answered the girl, 
blushing, "and be comfortable and contented, though 
nobody thinks about us." 

"I suppose," said her father, after a fit of musing, "there 
is something natural in what the young man says; and if 
my mind had been turned that way, I might have felt just 
the same. It is strange, wife, how his talk has set my head 
running on things that are pretty certain never to come to 
pass." 

"Perhaps they may," observed the wife. "Is the man 
thinking what he will do when he is a widower?" 

"No, no!" cried he, repelling the idea with reproachful 
kindness. "When I think of your death, Esther, I think 
of mine, too. But I was wishing we had a good farm in 
Bartlett, or Bethlehem, or Littleton, or some other town- 
ship round the White Mountains; but not where they 
could tumble on our heads. I should want to stand well 
with my neighbors, and be called Squire, and sent to Gen- 
eral Court for a termor two; for a plain, honest man may 
do as much good there as a lawyer. And when I should 
be grown quite an old man, and you an old woman, so as 
not to be long apart, I might die happy enough in my bed, 
and leave you all crying around me. A slate gravestone 
would suit me as well as a marble one, — with just my name 
and age, and a verse of a hymn, and something to let peo- 
ple know that I lived an honest man and died a Christian," 

"There now !" exclaimed the stranger; "it is our nature 
to desire a monument, be it slate, or marble, or a pillar of 
granite, or a glorious memory in the universal heart of 
man." 

"We're in a strange way, to-night," said the wife, with 
tears in her eyes. "They say it's a sign of something, 
when folks' minds go a- wandering so. Hark to the chil- 
dren!" 

They listened accordingly. ... At length, a little boy, 



138 American Literature 

instead of addressing his brothers and sisters, called out to 
his mother. 

"I'll tell you what I wish, mother," cried he. *'I want 
you and father and grandma'm, and all of us, and the 
stranger too, to start right away, and go and take a drink 
out of the basin of the Flume !" 

Nobody could help laughing at the child's notion of 
leaving a warm bed, and dragging them from a cheerful 
fire, to visit the basin of the Flume, — a brook which tum- 
bles over the precipice, deep within the Notch. The boy 
had hardly spoken, when a wagon rattled along the road, 
and stopped a moment before the door. . . . 

"Father," said the girl, "they are calKng you by name." 

But the good man doubted whether they had really 
called him, and was unwilling to show himself too solic- 
itous of gain, by inviting people to patronize his house. 
He therefore did not hurry to the door; and the lash being 
soon appHed, the travellers plunged into the Notch, still 
singing and laughing, though their music and mirth came 
back drearily from the heart of the mountain. 

"There, mother!" cried the boy again, "they'd have 
given us a ride to the Flume." 

Again they laughed at the child's pertinacious fancy for 
a night ramble. But it happened that a Kght cloud passed 
over the daughter's spirit; she looked gravely into the 
fire, and drew a breath that was almost a sigh. It forced 
its way, in spite of a little struggle to repress it. Then, 
starting and blushing, she looked quickly round the cir- 
cle, as if they had caught a glimpse into her bosom. The 
stranger asked what she had been thinking of. 

" Nothing," answered she, with a downcast smile. "Only 
I felt lonesome just then." 

"O, I have always had a gift of feeling what is in other 
people's hearts !" said he, half seriously. "Shall I tell the 
secrets of yours? For I know what to think, when a 
young girl shivers by a warm hearth, and complains of 
lonesomeness at her mother's side. Shall I put these feel- 
ings into words?" 

"They would not be a girl's feelings any longer, if they 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 139 

could be put into words," replied the mountain nymph, 
laughing, but avoiding his eye. 

All this was said apart. . . . But, while they spoke 
softly, and he was watching the happy sadness, the light- 
some shadows, the shy yearnings of a maiden's nature, the 
wind through the Notch took a deeper and drearier sound. 
It seemed, as the fanciful stranger said, like the choral 
strain of the spirits of the blast, who, in old Indian times, 
had their dwelling among these mountains, and made their 
heights and recesses a sacred region. There was a wail, 
along the road, as if a funeral were passing. To chase 
away the gloom, the family threw pine branches on their 
fire, till the dry leaves crackled and the flame arose, dis- 
covering once again a scene of peace and humble happi- 
ness. The light hovered about them fondly, and caressed 
them all. There were the little faces of the children, peep- 
ing from their bed apart, and here the father's frame of 
strength, the mother's subdued and careful mien, the 
high-browed youth, the budding girl, and the good old 
grandam, still knitting in the warmest place. The aged 
woman looked up from her task, and with fingers ever busy, 
was the next to speak. 

"Old folks have their notions," said she, "as well as 
young ones. You've been wishing and planning and letting 
your heads run on one thing and another, till you've set my 
mind a- wandering too. Now what should an old woman 
wish for, when she can go but a step or two before she comes 
to her grave ? Children, it will haunt me night and day till 
I tell you." 

"Wliat is it, mother?" cried the husband and wife, at 
once. 



"I want one of you, my children, — when your mother 
is dressed and in her coffin, — I want one of you to hold a 
looking-glass over my face. Who knows but I may take 
a glimpse at myself, and see whether all's right?" 

"Old and young, we dream of graves and monuments," 
murmured the stranger youth. "I wond'er how mariners 



140 American Literature ' 

feel, when the ship is sinking, and they, unknown and un- 
distinguished, are to be buried together in the ocean, — 
that wide and nameless sepulchre?" 

For a moment, the old woman's ghastly conception so 
engrossed the minds of her hearers, that a sound abroad 
in the night, rising Hke the roar of a blast, had grown 
broad, deep, and terrible, before the fated group were 
conscious of it. The house, and all within it, trembled; 
the foundations of the earth seemed to be shaken, as if 
this awful sound were the peal of the last trump. Young ; 
and old exchanged one wild glance, and remained an in- J 
stant, pale, affrighted, without utterance, or power to 
move. Then the same shriek burst simultaneously from 
all their lips. 

"The Slide! The Slide!" 

The simplest words must intimate, but not portray, the ' 
unutterable horror of the catastrophe. The victims rushed 
from their cottage and sought refuge in what they deemed a 
safer spot, — where, in contemplation of such an emergency, 
a sort of barrier had been reared. Alas ! they had quitted 
their security, and fled right into the pathway of destruc- 
tion. Down came the whole side of the mountain, in a 
cataract of ruin. Just before it reached the house, the 
stream broke into two branches, — shivered not a window 
there, but o-^/erwhelmed the whole vicinity, blocked up 
the road, and annihilated everything in its dreadful course. 
Long ere the thunder of that great Slide had ceased to roar 
among the mountains, the mortal agony had been endured, 
and the victims were at peace. Their bodies were never 
found. 



The Toll-Gatherer's Day 

a sketch of transitory life 

Methinks, for a person whose instinct bids him rather 
to pore over the current of life, than to plunge into its 
tumultuous waves, no undesirable retreat were a toll-house 
beside some thronged thoroughfare of the land. In youth, 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 141 

perhaps, it is good for the observer to run about the earth, 
— to leave the track of his footsteps far and wide, — to 
mingle himself with the action of numberless vicissitudes, 
— and, finally, in some calm sohtude, to feed a musing 
spirit on all that he has seen and felt. But there are na- 
tures too indolent, or too sensitive, to endure the dust, the 
sunshine, or the rain, the turmoil of moral and physical 
elements, to which all the wayfarers of the world expose 
themselves. For such a man, how pleasant a miracle, 
could Hfe be made to roll its variegated length by the 
threshold of his own hermitage, and the great globe, as it 
were, perform its revolutions and shift its thousand scenes 
before his eyes without whirKng him onward in its course. 
If any mortal be favored with a lot analogous to this, it is 
the toll-gatherer. So, at least, have I often fancied, while 
lounging on a bench at the door of a small square edifice, 
which stands between shore and shore in the midst of a 
long bridge. Beneath the timbers ebbs and flows an arm 
of the sea; while above, like the life-blood through a great 
artery, the travel of the north and east is continually 
throbbing. Sitting on the aforesaid bench, I amuse my- 
self with a conception, illustrated by numerous pencil- 
sketches in the air, of the toll-gatherer's day. 

In the morning — dim, gray, dewy summer's morn — the 
distant roll of ponderous wheels begins to mingle with my 
old friend's slumbers, creaking more and more harshly 
through the midst of his dream, and gradually replacing 
it with realities. Hardly conscious of the change from 
sleep to wakefulness, he finds himself partly clad and 
throwing wide the toll-gates for the passage of a fragrant 
load of hay. The timbers groan beneath the slow-revolv- 
ing wheels; one sturdy yeoman stalks beside the oxen, 
and, peering from the summit of the hay, by the glimmer 
of the half-extinguished lantern over the toll-house, is 
seen the drowsy visage of his comrade, who has enjoyed a 
nap some ten miles long. The toll is paid, — creak, creak, 
again go the wheels, and the huge hay-mow vanishes into 
the morning mist. As yet, nature is but half awake, and 
familiar objects appear visionary. But yonder, dashing 



142 American Literature 

from the shore with a rattling thunder of the wheels and a 
confused clatter of hoofs, comes the never-tiring mail, 
which has hurried onward at the same headlong, restless 
rate, all through the quiet night. The bridge resounds 
in one continued peal as the coach rolls on without a pause, 
merely affording the toll-gatherer a glimpse at the sleepy 
passengers, who now bestir their torpid limbs, and snuff 
a cordial in the briny air. The morn breathes upon them 
and blushes, and they forget how wearily the darkness 
toiled away. And behold now the fervid day, in his bright 
chariot, glittering aslant over the waves, nor scorning to 
throw a tribute of his golden beams on the toll-gatherer's 
little hermitage. The old man looks eastward, and (for 
he is a moralizer) frames a simile of the stage-coach and 
the sun. 

While the world is rousing itself, we may glance slightly 
at the scene of our sketch. It sits above the bosom of the 
broad flood, a spot not of earth, but in the midst of waters, 
which rush with a murmuring sound among the massive 
beams beneath. Over the door is a weather-beaten board, 
inscribed with the rates of toll, in letters so nearly effaced 
that the gilding of the sunshine can hardly make them 
legible. Beneath the window is a wooden bench, on which 
a long succession of weary wayfarers have reposed them- 
selves. Peeping within doors we perceive the whitewashed 
walls bedecked with sundry Kthographic prints and adver- 
tisements of various import, and the immense show-bill of 
a wandering caravan. And there sits our good old toll- 
gatherer, glorified by the early sunbeams. He is a man, as 
his aspect may announce, of quiet soul, and thoughtful, 
shrewd, yet simple mind, who, of the wisdom which the 
passing world scatters along the wayside, has gathered a 
reasonable store. 

Now the sun smiles upon the landscape, and earth smiles 
back again upon the sky. Frequent, now, are the travel- 
lers. The toll-gatherer's practised ear can distinguish the 
weight of every vehicle, the number of its wheels, and how 
many horses beat the resounding timbers with their iron 
tramp. Here, in a substantial family chaise, setting forth 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 143 

betimes to take advantage of the dewy road, come a gen- 
tleman and his wife, with their rosy-cheeked little girl 
sitting gladsomely between them. The bottom of the 
chaise is heaped with multifarious band-boxes and carpet- 
bags, and beneath the axle swings a leathern trunk dusty 
with yesterday's journey. Next appears a four-wheeled 
carryall, peopled by a round half-dozen of pretty girls, all 
drawn by a single horse, and driven by a single gentleman. 
Luckless wight, doomed, through a whole summer day, to 
be the butt of mirth and mischief among the frolicsome 
maidens. Bolt upright in a sulky rides a thin, sour-visaged 
man, who, as he pays his toll, hands the toll-gatherer a 
printed card to stick upon the wall. The vinegar-faced 
traveller proves to be a manufacturer of pickles. Now 
paces slowly from timber to timber a horseman clad in 
black, with a meditative brow, as of one who, whitherso- 
ever his steed might bear him, would still journey through 
a mist of brooding thought. He is a country preacher, 
going to labor at a protracted meeting. The next object 
passing townward is a butcher's cart, canopied with its 
arch of snow-white cotton. Behind comes a "sauceman," 
driving a wagon full of new potatoes, green ears of corn, 
beets, carrots, turnips, and summer squashes; and next, 
two wrinkled, witch-looking old gossips, in an antediluvian 
chaise, drawn by a horse of former generations, and going 
to peddle out a lot of huckleberries. See there, a man 
trundling a wheelbarrow load of lobsters. And now a 
milk-cart rattles briskly onward, covered with green can- 
vas, and conveying the contributions of a whole herd of 
cows, in large tin canisters. But let all these pay their 
toll and pass. Here comes a spectacle that causes the old 
toll-gatherer to smile benignantly, as if the travellers 
brought sunshine with them and lavished its gladsome 
influence all along the road. 

It is a barouche of the newest style, the varnished panels 
of which reflect the whole moving panorama of the land- 
scape, and show a picture, likewise, of our friend, with his 
visage broadened, so that his meditative smile is trans- 
formed to grotesque merriment. Within, sits a youth, 



144 American Literature 

fresh as the summer morn, and beside him a young lady in 
white, with white gloves upon her slender hands, and a 
white veil flowing down over her face. But methinks her 
blushing cheek burns through the snowy veil. Another 
white-robed virgin sits in front. And who are these, on 
whom, and on all that appertains to them, the dust of 
earth seems never to have settled? Two lovers, whom the 
priest has blessed, this blessed morn, and sent them forth, 
with one of the bridemaids, on the matrimonial tour. 
Take my blessing too, ye happy ones ! May the sky not 
frown upon you, nor clouds bedew you with their chill 
and sullen rain ! May the hot sun kindle no fever in your 
hearts ! May your whole life's pilgrimage be as bhssful 
as this first day's journey, and its close be gladdened with 
even brighter anticipations than those which hallow your 
bridal night ! 

They pass; and ere the reflection of their joy has faded 
from his face, another spectacle throws a melancholy 
shadow over the spirit of the observing man. In a close 
carriage sits a fragile figure, muffled carefully, and shrink- 
ing even from a mild breath of summer. She leans against 
a manly form, and his arm enfolds her, as if to guard his 
treasure from some enemy. Let but a few weeks pass, and 
when he shall strive to embrace that loved one, he will 
press only desolation to his heart. 

And now has morning gathered up her dewy pearls, 
and fled away. The sun rolls blazing through the sky, 
and cannot find a cloud to cool his face with. The horses 
toil sluggishly along the bridge, and heave their glistening 
sides in short, quick pantings, when the reins are tightened 
at the toll-house. Glisten, too, the faces of the travellers. 
Their garments are thickly bestrewn with dust; their 
whiskers and hair look hoary; their throats are choked 
with the dusty atmosphere which they have left behind 
them. No air is stirring on the road. Nature dares draw 
no breath, lest she should inhale a stifling cloud of dust. 
*'A hot and dusty day!" cry the poor pilgrims, as they 
wipe their begrimed foreheads, and woo the doubtful 
breeze which the river bears along with it. "Awful hot! 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 145 

Dreadful dusty!" answers the sympathetic toll-gatherer. 
They start again, to pass through the fiery furnace, while 
he reenters his cool hermitage, and besprinkles it with a 
pail of briny water from the stream beneath. He thinks 
within himself, that the sun is not so fierce here as else- 
where, and that the gentle air does not forget him in these 
sultry days. Yes, old friend; and a quiet heart will make 
a dog-day temperate. He hears a weary footstep, and 
perceives a traveller with pack and staff, who sits down 
upon the hospitable bench, and removes the hat from his 
wet brow. The toll-gatherer administers a cup of cold 
water, and discovering his guest to be a man of homely 
sense, he engages him in profitable talk, uttering the 
maxims of a philosophy which he has found in his own soul, 
but knows not how it came there. And as the wayfarer 
makes ready to resume his journey, he tells him a sovereign 
remedy for blistered feet. 

Now comes the noon-tide hour, — of all the hours nearest 
akin to midnight; for each has its own calmness and repose. 
Soon, however, the world begins to turn again upon its 
axis, and it seems the busiest epoch of the day; when an 
accident impedes the march of sublunary things. The 
draw being lifted to permit the passage of a schooner, laden 
with wood from the eastern forests, she sticks immovably, 
right athwart the bridge ! Meanwhile, on both sides of 
the chasm, a throng of impatient travellers fret and fume. 
Here are two sailors in a gig, with the top thrown back, 
both puffing cigars, and swearing all sorts of forecastle 
oaths; there, in a smart chaise, a dashingly dressed gen- 
tleman and lady, he from a tailor's shop-board, and she 
from a milliner's back-room, — the aristocrats of a summer 
afternoon. And what are the haughtiest of us, but the 
ephemeral aristocrats of a summer's day? Here is a tin- 
pedler, whose glittering ware bedazzles all beholders, like 
a travelling meteor, or opposition sun; and on the other 
side a seller of spruce-beer, which brisk liquor is confined 
in several dozen of stone bottles. Here comes a party of 
ladies on horseback, in green riding habits, and gentlemen 
attendant; and there a flock of sheep for the market, 



146 American Literature 

pattering over the bridge with a multitudinous clatter of 
their little hoofs. Here a Frenchman, with a hand-organ 
on his shoulder; and there an itinerant Swiss jeweller. 
On this side, heralded by a blast of clarions and bugles, 
appears a train of wagons, conveying all the wild beasts 
of a caravan; and on that, a company of summer soldiers, 
marching from village to village on a festival campaign, 
attended by the "brass band." Now look at the scene, 
and it presents an emblem of the mysterious confusion, 
the apparently insolvable riddle, in which individuals, or 
the great world itself, seem often to be involved. What 
miracle shall set all things right again ? 

But see! the schooner has thrust her bulky carcass 
through the chasm; the draw descends; horse and foot 
pass onward, and leave the bridge vacant from end to 
end. "And thus," muses the toll-gatherer, "have I found 
it with all stoppages, even though the universe seemed to 
be at a stand." The sage old man ! 

Far westward now, the reddening sun throws a broad 
sheet of splendor across the flood, and to the eyes of dis- 
tant boatmen gleams brightly among the timbers of the 
bridge. Strollers come from the town to quaff the freshen- 
ing breeze. One or two let down long Hnes, and haul up 
flapping flounders, or cunners, or small cod, or perhaps 
an eel. Others, and fair girls among them, with the flush 
of the hot day still on their cheeks, bend over the railing 
and watch the heaps of sea-weed floating upward with the 
flowing tide. The horses now tramp heavily along the 
bridge, and wistfuHy bethink them of their stables. Rest, 
rest, thou weary world; for to-morrow's round of toil and 
pleasure will be as wearisome as to-day's has been; yet 
both shall bear thee onward a day's march of eternity. 
Now the old toll-gatherer looks seaward, and discerns 
the lighthouse kindling on a far island, and the stars, too, 
kindling in the sky, as if but a Httle way beyond; and min- 
gUng the reveries of Heaven with remembrances of Earth, 
the whole procession of mortal travellers, all the dusty 
pilgrimage which he has witnessed, seems like a flitting 
show of phantoms for his thoughtful soul to muse upon. 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 147 

4. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (i 807-1 882) was born in 
Portland, Maine, and educated at Bowdoin College. After 
graduation he went abroad to study foreign languages and 
literatures so that he might be able to teach them at his alma 
mater. In three years he returned and spent the next six 
years as a professor at Bowdoin. He then accepted the pro- 
fessorship of modern languages at Harvard, but before enter- 
ing on the work went abroad for another year's study. He 
held the position for eighteen years; then he resigned and 
devoted the rest of his life to writing. He was a pioneer in 
revealing to the American public the beauties of foreign Ht- 
eratures through his translations. Longfellow is the most 
popular of all our poets in America and is more widely read 
abroad than any other American poet with the possible ex- 
ception of Poe. Both Oxford and Cambridge conferred on him 
honorary degrees. In 1884 a marble bust of Longfellow was 
placed in the Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey. 

The Skeleton in Armor 

" Speak ! speak ! thou fearful guest ! 
Who, with thy hollow breast 
Still in rude armor drest, 

Comest to daunt me ! 
Wrapt not in Eastern balms, 
But with thy fleshless palms 
Stretched, as if asking alms, 
Why dost thou haunt me?" 

Then, from those cavernous eyes 
Pale flashes seemed to rise. 
As when the Northern skies 

Gleam in December; 
And, like the water's flow 
Under December's snow. 
Came a dull voice of woe 

From the heart's chamber. 

"I was a Viking old ! 

My deeds, though manifold, 

No Skald in song has told, 



148 American Literature 

No Saga taught thee ! 
Take heed, that in thy verse 
Thou dost the tale rehearse, 
Else dread a dead man's curse; 

For this I sought thee. 

" Far in the Northern Land, 
By the wild Baltic's strand, 
I, with my childish hand, 

Tamed the gerfalcon; 
And, with my skates fast-bound. 
Skimmed the half-frozen Sound, 
That the poor whimpering hound 

Trembled to walk on. 

"Oft to his frozen lair 
Tracked I the grisly bear, 
While from my path the hare 

Fled like a shadow; 
Oft through the forest dark 
Followed the were-wolf's bark, 
Until the soaring lark 

Sang from the meadow. 

"But when I older grew. 
Joining a corsair's crew, 
O'er the dark sea I flew 

With the marauders. 
Wild was the Kfe we led, 
Many the souls that sped. 
Many the hearts that bled. 

By our stern orders. 

"Many a wassail-bout 
Wore the long Winter out; 
Often our midnight shout 

Set the cocks crowing, 
As we the Berserk's tale 
Measured in cups of ale. 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 149 

Draining the oaken pail, 
Filled to o'erflowing. 

"Once as I told in glee 
Tales of the stormy sea, 
Soft eyes did gaze on me. 

Burning yet tender; 
And as the white stars shine 
On the dark Norway pine, 
On that dark heart of mine 

Fell their soft splendor. 

"I wooed the blue-eyed maid, 
Yielding, yet half afraid, 
And in the forest's shade 

Our vows were pHghted. 
Under its loosened vest 
Fluttered her little breast, 
Like birds within their nest 

By the hawk frighted. 

''Bright in her father's hall 
ShieWs gleamed upon the wall, 
Loud sang the minstrels all. 

Chanting his glory; 
When of old Hildebrand 
I asked his daughter's hand, 
Mute did the minstrels stand 

To hear my story. 

''While the brown ale he quaffed, 
Loud then the champion laughed. 
And as the wind-gusts waft 

The sea-foam brightly. 
So the loud laugh of scorn, 
Out of those lips unshorn, 
From the deep drinking-horn 

Blew the foam lightly. 



150 American Literature 

"She was a Prince's child, 

I but a Viking wild, 

And though she blushed and smiled, 

I was discarded ! 
Should not the dove so white 
Follow the sea-mew's flight, 
Why did they leave that night 

Her nest unguarded ? 

"Scarce had I put to sea, 
Bearing the maid with me, 
Fairest of all was she 

Among the Norsemen ! 
When on the white sea-strand, 
Waving his armed hand. 
Saw we old Hildebrand, 

With twenty horsemen. 

"Then launched they to the blast, 
Bent like a reed each mast, 
Yet we were gaining fast. 

When the wind failed us; 
And with a sudden flaw 
Came round the gusty Skaw, 
So that our foe we saw 

Laugh as he hailed us. 

"And as to catch the gale 
Round veered the flapping sail, 
'Death !' was the helmsman's hail; 

'Death without quarter!'* 
Mid-ships with iron keel 
Struck we her ribs of steel; 
Down her black hulk did reel 

Through the black water ! 

"As with his wings aslant. 

Sails the fierce cormorant. 

Seeking some rocky haunt. 

With his prey laden; 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 151 

So toward the open main, 
Beating to sea again, 
Through the wild hurricane, 
Bore I the maiden. 

"Three weeks we westward bore. 
And when the storm was o'er. 
Cloud-like we saw the shore 

Stretching to leeward; 
There for my lady's bower 
Built I the lofty tower, 
Which, to this very hour, 

Stands looking seaward. 

"There lived we many years; 
Time dried the maiden's tears; 
She had forgot her fears, 

She was a mother; 
Death closed her mild blue eyes, 
Under the tower she Hes; 
Ne'er shall the sun arise 

On such another ! 

"Still grew my bosom then, 
Still as a stagnant fen ! 
Hateful to me were men. 

The sunlight hateful ! 
In the vast forest here, 
Clad in my warhke gear, 
Fell I upon my spear, 
■^ O, death was grateful ! 

"Thus seamed with many scars 
Bursting these prison bars^ 
Up to its native stars 

My soul ascended ! 
There from the flowing bowl 
Deep drinks the warrior's soul 
Skoal! to the Northland ! skoal!" 

— Thus the tale ended. 



152 American Literature 



The Arrow and the Song 

I shot an arrow into the air. 

It fell to earth, I knew not where; 
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight 

Could not follow in its flight. 

I breathed a song into the air. 
It fell to earth, I knew not where; 

For who has sight so keen and strong 
That it can follow the flight of song. 

Long, long afterward, in an oak, 
I found the arrow still unbroke; 

And the song, from beginning to end, 
I found again in the heart of a friend. 



The Day Is Done 

The day is done, and the darkness 
Falls from the wings of Night, 

As a feather is wafted downward 
From an eagle in his flight. 

I see the lights of the village 

Gleam through the rain and the mist, 
And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me, 

That my soul cannot resist; 

A feeling of sadness and longing 

That is not akin to pain, 
And resembles sorrow only 

As the mist resembles the rain. 

Come, read to me some poem, 
Some simple and heartfelt lay, 

That shall soothe this restless feeling. 
And banish the thoughts of day. 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 153 

Not from the grand old masters, 

Not from the bards sublime, 
Whose distant footsteps echo 

Through the corridors of Time. 

For, like strains of martial music, 
Their mighty thoughts suggest 

Life's endless toil and endeavor; 
And to-night I long for rest. 

Read from some humbler poet, 
Whose songs gushed from his heart. 

As showers from the clouds of summer, 
Or tears from the eyehds start; 

Who, through long days of labor. 

And nights devoid of ease. 
Still heard in his soul the music 

Of wonderful melodies. 

Such songs have power to quiet 

The restless pulse of care, 
And come hke the benediction 

That follows after prayer. 

Then read from the treasured volume 

The poem of thy choice, 
And lend to the rhyme of the poet 

The beauty of thy voice. 

Hiawatha's Wooing 

(From the Song of Hiawatha) 

"As unto the bow the cord is, 
So unto the man is woman; 
Though she bends him, she obeys him. 
Though she draws him, yet she follows; 
Useless each without the other !" 
Thus the youthful Hiawatha 



154 American Literature 

Said within himself and pondered, 
Much perplexed by various feelings, 
Listless, longing, hoping, fearing, 
Dreaming still of Minnehaha, 
Of the lovely Laughing Water, 
In the land of the Dacotahs. 

"Wed a maiden of your people," 
Warning said the old Nokomis; 
" Go not eastward, go not westward, 
For a stranger, whom we know not ! 
Like a fire upon the hearth-stone 
Is a neighbor's homely daughter, 
Like the starlight or the moonUght 
Is the handsomest of strangers !" 

Thus dissuading spake Nokomis, 
And my Hiawatha Answered 
Only this: "Dear old Nokomis, 
Very pleasant is the firelight 
But I like the starhght better, 
Better do I hke the moonlight !" 

Gravely then said old Nokomis: 
"Bring not here an idle maiden. 
Bring not here a useless woman. 
Hands unskilful, feet unwilling; 
Bring a wife with nimble fingers. 
Heart and hand that move together, 
Feet that run on wilHng errands !" 

Smiling answered Hiawatha: 
"In the land of the Dacotahs 
Lives the Arrow-maker's daughter, 
Minnehaha, Laughing Water, 
Handsomest of all the women. 
I will bring her to your wigwam. 
She shall run upon your errands. 
Be your starlight, moonlight, firelight, 
Be the sunlight of my people !" 

Still dissuading said Nokomis: 
"Bring not to my lodge a stranger 
From the land of the Dacotahs ! 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 155 

Very fierce are the Dacotahs, 
Often is there war between us, 
There are feuds yet unforgotten, 
Wounds that ache and still may open !" 

Laughing answered Hiawatha: 
"For that reason, if no other, 
Would I wed the fair Dacotah, 
That our tribes might be united, 
That old feuds might be forgotten, 
And old wounds be healed forever !" 

Thus departed Hiawatha 
To the land of the Dacotahs, 
To the land of handsome women; 
Striding over moor and meadow, 
Through interminable forests, 
Through uninteri^pted silence. 

With his moccasins of magic, 
At each stride a mile he measured; 
Yet the way seemed long before him. 
And his heart outran his footsteps; 
And he journeyed without resting. 
Till he heard the cataract's laughter, 
Heard the Falls of Minnehaha 
Calling to him through the silence. 
"Pleasant is the sound !" he murmured, 
"Pleasant is the voice that calls me !" 

On the outskirts of the forests, 
'Twixt the shadow and the sunshine. 
Herds of fallow deer were feeding, 
But they saw not Hiawatha; 
To his bow he whispered, "Fail not !" 
To his arrow whispered, "Swerve not!" 
Sent it singing on its errand, 
To the red heart of the roebuck; 
Threw the deer across his shoulder. 
And sped forward without pausing. 

At the doorway of his wigwam 
Sat the ancient Arrow-maker, 
In the land of the Dacotahs, 



156 American Literature 

Making arrow-heads of jasper, 

Arrow-heads of chalcedony. 

At his side, in all her beauty, 

Sat the lovely Minnehaha, 

Sat his daughter. Laughing Water, 

Plaiting mats of flags and rushes; 

Of the past the old man's thoughts were, 

And the maiden's of the future. 

He was thinking, as he sat there, 
Of the days when with such arrows 
He had struck the deer and bison, 
On the Muskoday, the meadow; 
Shot the wild goose, flying southward, 
On the wing, the clamorous Wawa; 
Thinking of the great war-parties, 
How they came to buy his arrows. 
Could not fight without his arrows, 
Ah, no more such noble warriors 
Could be found on earth as they were ! 
Now the men were all like women. 
Only used their tongues for weapons ! 

She was thinking of a hunter. 
From another tribe and country, 
Young and tall and very handsome, 
Who one morning, in the Spring-time, 
Came to buy her father's arrows. 
Sat and rested in the wigwam, 
Lingered long about the doorway, 
Looking back as he departed. 
She had heard her father praise him, 
Praise his courage and his wisdom; 
Would he come again for arrows 
To the Falls of Minnehaha ? 
On the mat her hands lay idle. 
And her eyes were very dreamy. 

Through their thoughts they heard a footstep, 
Heard a rustling in the branches, 
And with glowing cheek and forehead, 
With the deer upon his shoulders, 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 157 

Suddenly from out the woodlands 
Hiawatha stood before them. 

Straight the ancient Arrow-maker 
Looked up gravely from his labor, 
Laid aside the unfinished arrow, 
Bade him enter at the doorway, 
Saying, as he rose to meet him, 
"Hiawatha, you are welcome!" 

At the feet of Laughing Water 
Hiawatha laid his burden. 
Threw the red deer from his shoulders; 
And the maiden looked up at him, 
Looked up from her mat of rushes. 
Said with gentle look and accent, 
"You are welcome, Hiawatha!" 

Very spacious was the wigwam, 
Made of deer-skins dressed and whitened 
With the Gods of the Dacotahs 
Drawn and painted on its curtains, 
And so tall the doorway, hardly 
Hiawatha stooped to enter, 
Hardly touched his eagle-feathers 
As he entered at the doorway. 

Then uprose the Laughing Water, 
From the ground fair Minnehaha, 
Laid aside her mat unfinished. 
Brought forth food and set before them, 
Water brought them from the brooklet. 
Gave them food in earthen vessels. 
Gave them drink in bowls of bass-wood, 
Listened while the guest was speaking. 
Listened while her father answered, 
But not once her lips she opened. 
Not a single word she uttered. 

Yes, as in a dream she listened 
To the words of Hiawatha, 
As he talked of old Nokomis, 
Who had nursed him in his childhood, 
As he told of his companions. 



158 American Literature 

Chibiabos, the musician. 

And the very strong man, Kwasind, 

And of happiness and plenty 

In the land of the Ojibways, 

In the pleasant land and peaceful. 

"After many years of warfare, 
Many years of strife and bloodshed, 
There is peace between the Ojibways 
And the tribe of the Dacotahs." 
Thus continued Hiawatha, 
And then 2 ,ided, speaking slowly, 
"That this peace may last forever, 
And our hands be clasped more closely, 
And our hearts be more united. 
Give me as my wife this maiden, 
Minnehaha, Laughing Water, 
Loveliest of Dacotah women !" 

And the ancient Arrow-maker 
Paused a moment ere he answered, 
Smoked a Httle while in silence. 
Looked at Hiawatha proudly, 
Fondly looked at Laughing Water, 
And made answer very gravely: 
"Yes, if Minnehaha wishes; 
Let your heart speak, Minnehaha ! " 

And the lovely Laughing Water 
Seemed more lovely as she stood there. 
Neither willing nor reluctant, 
As she went to Hiawatha, 
Softly took the seat beside him, 
While she said, and blushed to say it, 
"I will follow you, my husband !" 

This was Hiawatha's wooing ! 
Thus it was he won the daughter 
Of the ancient Arrow-maker, 
In the land of the Dacotahs ! 

From the wigwam he departed, 
Leading with him Laughing Water; 
Hand in hand they went together, 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 159 

Through the woodland and the meadow, 
Left the old man standing lonely 
At the doorway of his wigwam, 
Heard the Falls of Minnehaha 
CalKng to them from the distance, 
Crying to them from afar off, 
'Tare thee well, O Minnehaha!" 

And the ancient Arrow-maker 
Turned again unto his labor, 
Sat down by his sunny doorway 
Murmuring to himself, ar 1 saying : 
"Thus it is our daughters leave us, 
Those we love, and those who love us ! 
Just when they have learned to help us, 
When we are old and lean upon them. 
Comes a youth with flaunting feathers, 
With his flute of reeds, a stranger 
Wanders piping through the village. 
Beckons to the fairest maiden, 
And she follows where he leads her, 
Leaving all things for the stranger !" 

Pleasant was the journey homeward, 
Through interminable forests. 
Over meadow, over mountain, 
Over river, hill, and hollow. 
Short it seemed to Hiawatha, 
Though they journeyed very slowly, 
Though his pace he checked and slackened 
To the steps of Laughing Water. 

Over wide and rushing rivers 
In his arms he bore the maiden; 
Light he thought her as a feather. 
As the plume upon his head-gear; 
Cleared the tangled pathway for her, 
Bent aside the swaying branches, 
Made at night a lodge of branches, 
And a bed with boughs of hemlock. 
And a fire before the doorway 
With the dry cones of the pine-tree. 



160 American Literature 

All the traveling winds went with them, 
O'er the meadows, through the forest; 
All the stars of night looked at them, 
Watched with sleepless eyes their slumber; 
From his ambush in the oak-tree 
Peeped the squirrel, Adjidaumo, 
Watched with eager eyes the lovers; 
And the rabbit, the Wabasso, 
Scampered from the path before them. 
Peering, peeping from his burrow, 
Sat erect upon his haunches, 
Watched with curious eyes the lovers. 

Pleasant was the journey homeward ! 
All the birds sang loud and sweetly 
Songs of happiness and heart's-ease; 
Sang the bluebird, the Owaissa, 
"Happy are you, Hiawatha, 
Having now a wife to love you !" 
Sang the robin, the Opechee, 
"Happy are you, Laughing Water, 
Having such a noble husband !" 

From the sky the sun benignant 
Looked upon them through the branches. 
Saying to them, "O my children, 
Love is sunshine, hate is shadow, 
Life is checkered shade and sunshine, 
Rule by love, Q Hiawatha !" 

From the sky the moon looked at them. 
Filled the lodge with mystic splendors, 
Whispered to them, "O my children. 
Day is restless, night is quiet, 
Man imperious, woman feeble; 
Half is mine, although I follow; 
Rule by patience, Laughing Water !" 

Thus it was they journeyed homeward; 
Thus it was that Hiawatha 
To the lodge of old Nokomis 
Brought the moonlight, starUght, firelight, 
Brought the sunshine of his people, 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 161 

Minnehaha, Laughing Water, 
Handsomest of all the women 
In the land of the Dacotahs, 
In the land of handsome women. 



5. John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892), the Quaker poet, 
was reared on a farm and never went to college. He became 
an abolitionist and devoted himself to the cause of the slave. 
Emancipation was the theme of many of his poems before the 
Civil War. It was after the war (in 1866) that he published 
his masterpiece Snow-Bound, which gives a vivid picture of 
New England farm life in winter. This ranks with Goldsmith's 
Deserted Village and Burns's The Cotter^s Saturday Night as 
one of the best pictures of homely domestic life. 

The Frost Spirit 

He comes, — he comes, — the Frost Spirit comes ! You may 

trace his footsteps now 
On the naked woods and the blasted fields and the brown 

hill's withered brow. 
He has smitten the leaves of the gray old trees where their 

pleasant green came forth, 
And the winds, which follow wherever he goes, have shaken 

them down to earth. 

He comes, — he comes, — the Frost Spirit comes ! — from the 

frozen Labrador, — 
From the icy bridge of the Northern seas, which the white 

bear wanders o'er, — 
Where the fisherman's sail is stiff with ice, and the luckless 

forms below 
In the sunless cold of the Hngering night into marble statues 

grow! 

He comes, — he comes, — the Frost Spirit comes! — on the 

rushing Northern blast, 
And the dark Norwegian pines have bowed as his fearful 

breath went past. 



162 American Literature 

With an unscorched wing he has hurried on, where the 

fires of Hecla glow 
On the darkly beautiful sky above and the ancient ice below. 

He comes, — he comes, — the Frost Spirit comes ! — and the 

quiet lake shall feel 
The torpid touch of his glazing breath, and ring to the 

skater's heel; 
And the streams which danced on the broken rocks, or 

sang to the leaning grass, 
Shall bow again to their winter chain, and in mournful 

silence pass. 

He comes, — he comes, — the Frost Spirit comes ! — let us 
meet him as we may, 

And turn with the Hght of the parlor-fire his evil power 
away; 

And gather closer the circle round, when that fireUght 
dances high, 

And laugh at the shriek of the bafHed Fiend as his sound- 
ing wing goes by ! 

Maud Muller 

Maud Muller, on a summer's day 
Raked the meadow sweet with hay. 

Beneath her torn hat glowed the wealth 
Of simple beauty and rustic health. 

Singing, she wrought, and her merry glee 
The mock-bird echoed from his tree. 

But when she glanced to the far-off town, 
White from its hill-slope looking down, 

The sweet song died, and a vague unrest 
And a nameless longing filled her breast, — 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 163 

A wish, that she hardly dared to own, 
For something better than she had known. 

The Judge rode slowly down the lane, 
Smoothing his horse's chestnut mane. 

He drew his bridle in the shade 

Of the apple-trees to greet the maid, 

And ask a draught from the spring that flowed 
Through the meadow across the road. 

She stooped where the cool spring bubbled up 
And filled for him her small tin cup. 

And blushed as she gave it, looking down 
On her feet so bare, and her tattered gown. 

"Thanks!" said the Judge; "a sweeter draught 
From a fairer hand was never quaffed." 

He spoke of the grass and flowers and trees, 
Of the singing birds and the humming bees; 

Then talked of the haying, and wondered whether 
The cloud in the west would bring foul weather. 

And Maud forgot her brier-torn gown, 
And her graceful ankles bare and brown; 

And listened, while a pleased surprise 
Looked from her long-lashed hazel eyes. 

At last, like one who for delay 
Seeks a vain excuse, he rode away. 

Maud Muller looked and sighed: "Ah me ! 
That I the Judge's bride might be ! 



164 American Literature 

"He would dress me up in silks so fine, 
And praise and toast me at his wine. 

"My father should wear a broadcloth coat; 
My brother should sail a painted boat. 

"I'd dress my mother so grand and gay, 

And the baby should have a new toy each day. 

"And I'd feed the hungry and clothe the poor, 
And all should bless me who left our door." 

The Judge looked back as he climbed the hill, 
And saw Maud MuUer standing still. 

"A form more fair, a face more sweet, 
Ne'er hath it been my lot to meet. 

"And her modest answer and graceful air 
Show her wise and good as she is fair. 

"Would she were mine, and I to-day, 
Like her, a harvester of hay: 

"No doubtful balance of rights and wrongs, 
Nor weary lawyers with endless tongues, 

"But low of cattle and song of birds, 
And health and quiet and loving words." 

But he thought of his sisters proud and cold. 
And his mother vain of her rank and gold. 

So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on, 
And Maud was left in the field alone. 

But the lawyers smiled that afternoon, 
When he hummed in court an old love-tune; 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 165 

And the young girl mused beside the well, 
Till the rain on the unraked clover fell. 

He wedded a wife of richest dower, 
Who Uved for fashion, as he for power. 

Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright glow, 
He watched a picture come and go; 

And sweet Maud Muller's hazel eyes 
Looked out in their innocent surprise. 

Oft, when the wine in his glass was red, 
He longed for the wayside well instead; 

And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms, 
To dream of meadows and clover-blooms. 

And the proud man sighed, with a secret pain, 
*'Ah, that I were free again ! 

"Free as when I rode that day. 

Where the barefoot maiden raked her hay." 

She wedded a man unlearned and poor, 
And many children played round her door. 

But care, and sorrow, and childbirth pain. 
Left their traces on heart and brain. 

And oft, when the summer sun shone hot, 
On the new-mown hay in the meadow lot. 

And she heard the little spring brook fall 
Over the roadside, through the wall. 

In the shade of the apple-tree again 
She saw a rider draw his rein. 



166 American Literature 

And, gazing down with timid grace, 
She felt his pleased eyes read her face. 

Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls 
Stretched away into stately halls; 

The weary wheel to a spinnet turned, 
The tallow candle an astral burned, 

And for him who sat by the chimney lug, 
Dozing and grumbhng o'er pipe and mug, 

A manly form at her side she saw, 
And joy was duty and love was law. 

Then she took up her burden of life again, 
Saying only, ''It might have been." 

' Alas for maiden, alas for Judge, 
For rich repiner and household drudge ! 

God pity them both ! and pity us all. 
Who vainly the dreams of youth recall. 

For of all sad words of tongue or pen, 

The saddest are these: "It might have been!" 

Ah, well ! for us all some sweet hope lies 
Deeply buried from human eyes; 

And, in the hereafter, angels may 
Roll the stone from its grave away ! 

6. James Russell Lowell (1819-1891), " scholar, teacher, 
editor, wit, diplomat, of various and admirable gifts; Amer- 
ica's most finished citizen and man of letters," was a graduate 
of Harvard, where he succeeded Longfellow as professor of 
modern languages. While a student at college he tells us he 
read almost everything except the text-books prescribed by 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 167 

the Faculty. He served his country as Minister to Spain and 
later to England. He was the first editor of the Atlantic 
Monthly. In his Biglow Papers he makes a protest in Yankee 
dialect first against the war with Mexico and next against 
the Southern cause. In his Fable for Critics he gives us a witty 
estimate of contemporary writers. His essays in criticism 
rank among the best yet produced in America. 



The Shepherd of King Admetus 

There came a youth upon the earth, 

Some thousand years ago, 
Whose slender hands were nothing worth, 
Whether to plough, or reap, or sow. 

Upon an empty tortoise-shell 

He stretched some chords, and drew 
Music that made men's bosoms swell 
Fearless, or brimmed their eyes with dew. 

Then King Admetus, one who had 

Pure taste by right divine, 
Decreed his singing not too bad 
To hear between the cups of wine: 

And so, well-pleased with being soothed 

Into a sweet half-sleep. 
Three times his kingly beard he smoothed, 
And made him viceroy o'er his sheep. 

His words were simple words enough. 

And yet he used them so, 
That what in other mouths was rough 
In his seemed musical and low. 



Men called him but a shiftless youth, 

In whom no good they saw; 
And yet, unwittingly, in truth, 
They made his careless words their law. 



168 American Literature 

They knew not how he learned at all, 

For idly, hour by hour, 
He sat and watched the dead leaves fall, 
Or mused upon a common flower. 

It seemed the loveliness of things 

Did teach him all their use, 
For, in mere weeds, and stones, and springs, 
He found a heaUng power profuse. 

Men granted that his speech was wise, 

But, when a glance they caught 
Of his slim grace and woman's eyes. 
They laughed, and called him good-for-naught. 

Yet, after he was dead and gone, 

And e'en his memory dim. 
Earth seemed more sweet to Uve upon. 
More full of love, because of him. 

And day by day more holy grew 
Each spot where he had trod, 
Till after-poets only knew 
Their first-born brother as a god. 

To THE Dandelion 

Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way, 
Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold. 

First pledge of blithesome May, 
Which children pluck, and, full of pride, uphold, 
High-hearted buccaneers, o'erjoyed that they 
An Eldorado in the grass have found. 

Which not the rich earth's ample round 
May match in wealth, thou art more dear to me 
Than all the prouder summer-blooms may be. 

Gold such as thine ne'er drew the Spanish prow 
Through the primeval hush of Indian seas, 
Nor wrinkled the lean brow 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 169 

Of age, to rob the lover's heart of ease; 

'Tis the spring's largess, which she scatters now 
To rich and poor aUke, with lavish hand. 

Though most hearts never understand 
To take it at God's value, but pass by 
The offered wealth with unrewarded eye. 

Thou art my tropics and mine Italy; 
To look at thee unlocks a warmer clime; 

The eyes thou givest me 
Are in the heart, and heed not space or time: 

Not in mid June the golden-cuirassed bee 
Feels a more summer-like warm ravishment 

In the white Hly's breezy tent. 
His fragrant Sybaris, than I, when first 
From the dark green thy yellow circles burst. 

Then think I of deep shadows on the grass. 
Of meadows where in sun the cattle graze, 

Where, as the breezes pass, 
The gleaming rushes lean a thousand ways, 
Of leaves that slumber in a cloudy mass, 
Or whiten in the wind, of waters blue 

That from the distance sparkle through 
Some woodland gap, and of a sky above, 
Where one white cloud like a stray lamb doth move. 

My childhood's earliest thoughts are linked with thee; 
The sight of thee calls back the robin's song, 

Who, from the dark old tree 
Beside the door, sang clearly all day long, 

And I, secure in childish piety, 
Listened as if I heard an angel sing 

With news from heaven, which he could bring 
Fresh every day to my untainted ears. 
When birds and flowers and I were happy peers. 

How like a prodigal doth nature seem, 
When thou, for all thy gold, so common art! 



170 American Literature 

Thou teachest me to deem 
More sacredly of every human heart, 

Since each reflects in joy its scanty gleam 
Of heaven, and could some wondrous secret show 

Did we but pay the love we owe, 
And with a child's undoubting wisdom look 
On all these living pages of God's book. 

The Courtin' 
(From The Biglow Papers — Second Series — Introduction) 

God makes sech nights, all white an' still 

Fur'z you can look or listen, 
Moonshine an' snow on field an' hill, 

All silence an' all glisten. 

Zekle crep' up quite unbeknown 
An' peeked ih thru' the winder, 

An' there sot Huldy all alone, 
'Ith no one nigh to hender. 

A fireplace filled the room's one side 
With half a cord o' wood in, — 

There warn't no stoves (tell comfort died) 
To bake ye to a puddin'. 

The wa'nut logs shot sparkles out 
Towards the pootiest, bless her ! 

An' leetle flames danced all about 
The chiny on the dresser. 

Agin the chimbley crook-necks hung, 

An' in amongst 'em rusted 
The ole queen's-arm thet gran'ther Young 

Fetched back from Concord busted. 

The very room, coz she was in. 
Seemed warm from floor to ceilin', 

An' she looked full ez rosy agin 
Ez the apples she was peelin'. 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 171 

'Twas kin' o' kingdom-come to look 

On sech a blessed cretur, 
A dogrose blushin' to a brook 

Ain't modester nor sweeter. 

He was six foot o' man, A i, 

Clear grit an' human natur'; 
None couldn't quicker pitch a ton 

Nor dror a furrer straighter. 

Hed sparked it with full twenty gals, 
Hed squired 'em, danced 'em, druv 'em 

Fust this one, an' then thet, by spells — 
All is, he couldn't love 'em. 

But long o' her his veins 'ould run 

All crinkly like curled maple, 
The side she breshed felt full o' sun 

Ez a south slope in Ap'il. 

She thought no v'ice hed sech a swing 

Ez hisn in the choir; 
My ! when he made Ole Hunderd ring, 

She knoived the Lord was nigher. 

An' she'd blush scarlit, right in prayer, 

When her new meetin'-bunnet 
Felt somehow thru' its crown a pair 

O' blue eyes sot upon it. 

Thet night, I tell ye, she looked sotnel 
She seemed to 've gut a new soul, 

For she felt sartin-sure he'd come. 
Down to her very shoe-sole. 

She heered a foot, an' knowed it tu, 

A-raspin' on the scraper, — 
All ways to once her feehns flew 

Like sparks in burnt-up paper. 



172 American Literature i 

He kin' o' Titered on the mat, 

Some doubtfle o' the sekie, , 

His heart kep' goin' pity-pat, 

But hern went pity Zekle. 

An' yit she gin her cheer a jerk ; 

Ez though she wished him furder, I 

An' on her apples kep' to work, ; 

Parin' away Hke murder. 

"You want to see my Pa, I s'pose?" 

'*Wal . . . no . . . I come dasignin' " — 

*'To see my Ma? She's sprinklin' clo'es 
Agin to-morrer's i'nin." j 



To say why gals acts so or so, t 

Or don't, would be persumin'; j 

Mebby to mean yes an' say no ] 

Comes nateral to women. 

1 

He stood a spell on one foot fust, ■ 

Then stood a spell on t'other, \ 

An' on which one he felt the wust j 

He could't ha' told ye nuther. ; 

Says he, "I'd better call agin"; I 

Says she, "Think likely, Mister": ' 

Thet last word pricked him like a pin, ' 
An' . . . Wal, he up an' kist her. 

When Ma bimeby upon 'em slips, « 

Huldy sot pale ez ashes, j 

All kin' o' smily roun' the lips 

An' teary round' the lashes. i 

For she was jes' the quiet kind ' 

Whose naturs never vary, 
Like streams that keep a summer mind 

Snowhid in Jenooary. 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 173 

The blood clost roun' her heart felt glued 

Too tight for all expressin' 
Tell mother see how metters stood, 

An' gin 'em both her blessin'. 

Then her red come back Hke the tide 

Down to the Bay o' Fundy, 
An' all I know is they was cried 

In meetin' come nex' Sunday. 

A Letter from Mr. Ezekiel Biglow 
(From The Biglow Papers — First Series — No. I) 

Thrash away, you'll hev to rattle 

On them kittle-drums o' yourn, 
'Tain't a knowin' kind o' cattle 

Thet is ketched with moldy corn; 
Put in stiff, you fifer feller, 

Let folks see how spry you be — 
Guess you'll toot till you are yeller 

'Fore you git a-hold o' me ! 

Thet air flag's a leetle rotten, 

Hope it ain't your Sunday's best — 
Fact ! it takes a sight o' cotton 

To stuff out a soger's chest; 
Sence we farmers hev to pay fer't 

Ef you must wear humps like these 
S'posin, you should try salt hay fer't, 

It would du ez slick ez grease. 

'Twouldn't suit them Southun fellers. 

They're a dreffle graspin' set, 
We must oilers blow the bellers 

Wen they want their irons het; 
Maybe it's all right ez preachin', 

But my narves it kind o' grates, 
Wen I see the overreachin' 

O' them nigger-drivin' States. 



American Literature 

Them thet rule us, them slave-traders, 

Hain't they cut a thunderin' swath 
(Helped by Yankee renegaders), 

Thru the vartu o' the North ! 
We begin to think it's natur 

To take sarse an' not be riled — 
Who'd expect to see a tater 

All on eend at bein ' biled ? 

Ez fer war, I call it murder — 

There you hev it plain an' flat; 
I don't want to go no furder 

Than my Testament fer that; 
God hez sed so plump an' fairly. 

It's ez long ez it is broad, 
An' you've gut to git up airly 

Ef you want to take in God. 

'Tain't your eppyletts an' feathers 

Make the thing a grain more right; 
'Tain't a-follerin' your bell-wethers 

Will excuse ye in His sight; 
Ef you take a sword an' dror it, 

An' go stick a feller thru, 
Guv'ment ain't to answer for it, 

God'll send the bill to you. 

Wut's the use o' meetin'-goin' 

Every Sabbath, wet or dry, 
Ef it's right to go a-mowin' 

Feller-men Hke oats an' rye ? 
I dunno but wut it's pooty 

Trainin' round in bobtail coats — 
But it's curus Christian dooty 

This 'ere cuttin' folks's throats. 

Thay may talk o' Freedom's airy 

Tell they're pupple in the face — 
It's a grand gret cemetary 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 175 

Fer the barthrights of our race; 
They jest want this Cahforny 

So's to lug new slave States in 
To abuse ye, an' to scorn ye, 

An' to plunder ye like sin. 

Ain't it cute to see a Yankee 

Take sech everlastin' pains, 
All to git the Devil's thankee 

Helpin' on 'em weld their chains? 
Wy, it's jest ez clear ez figgers, 

Clear ez one an' one make two, 
Chaps thet make black slaves o' niggers 

Want to make wite slaves o' you. 

Tell ye jest the eend I've come to 

Arter cipherin' plaguy smart, 
An' it makes a handy sum, tu. 

Any gump could larn by heart; 
Laborin' man an' laborin' woman 

Hev one glory an' one shame. 
Ev'ythin' thet's done inhuman 

Injers all on 'em the same. 

'Tain't by turnin' out to hack folks 

You're agoin' to git your right 
Nor by lookin' down on black folks 

Coz you're put upon by wite; 
Slavery ain't o' nary color, 

'Tain't the hide thet makes it wus. 
All it keers fer is a feller 

'S jest to make him fill his pus. 

Want to tackle me in, du ye? 

I expect you'll hev to wait; 
Wen cold lead puts dayhght thru ye 

You'll begin to kal'late; 
S'pose the crows wun't fall to pickin' 

All the carkiss from your bones, 



176 American Literature 

Coz you helped to give a lickin' 
To them poor half-Spanish drones? 

Jest go home an' ask our Nancy 

Wether I'd be sech a goose 
Ez to jine ye — guess you'd fancy 

The etarnal bung wuz loose ! 
She wants me fer home consumption, 

Let alone the hay's to mow — 
Ef you're arter folks o' gumption, 

You've a darned long row to hoe. 

Take them editors thet's crowin' 

Like a cockerel three months old — 
Don't ketch any on 'em goin', 

Though they he so blasted bold; 
AinH they a prime lot o' fellers? 

'Fore they think on't they will sprout 
(Like a peach thet's got the yellers), 

With the meanness bustin' out. 

Wal, go 'long to help 'em stealin' 

Bigger pens to cram with slaves, 
Help the men thet's oilers deaUn' 

Insults on your fathers' graves; 
Help the strong to grind the feeble, 

Help the many agin the few, 
Help the men that call your people 

Witewashed slaves an' peddlin' crew? 

Massachusetts, God forgive her, 

She's a-kneelin' with the rest. 
She, thet ough' to ha' clung ferever 

In her grand old eagle-nest; 
She thet ough' to stand so fearless 

Wile the wracks are round her hurled, 
Holdin' up a beacon peerless 

To the oppressed of all the world ! 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 177 

Hain't they sold your colored seamen? 

Hain't they made your env'ys wiz? 
Wut'll make ye act like freemen ? 

Wut'll git your dander riz ? 
Come, I'll tell ye wut I'm thinkin' 

Is our dooty in this fix, 
They'd ha' done 't ez quick ez winkin' 

In the days o' seventy-six. 

Clang the bells in every steeple, 

Call all true men to disown 
The tradoocers of our people, 

The enslavers o' their own; 
Let our dear old Bay State proudly 

Put the trumpet to her mouth, 
Let her ring this messidge loudly 

In the ears of all the South — 

"I'll return ye good fer evil 

Much ez we frail mortils can, 
But I wun't go help the Devil 

Makin' man the cuss o' man; 
Call me coward, call me traiter. 

Jest ez suits your mean idees — 
Here I stand a tyrant-hater. 

An' the friend o' God an' Peace!" 

Ef I'd my way I hed ruther 

We should go to work an' part — 
They take one way, we take t'other — 

Guess it wouldn't break my heart; 
Man hed ought to put asunder 

Them thet God has noways jined; 
An' I shouldn't gretly wonder 

Ef there's thousands o' my mind. 

7. Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894), "the last leaf" 
upon the tree which had borne the fruit of the golden age of 
American literature, was a graduate of Harvard College and 



XTB Amcrlrnji Lifr?'ature 

afterward of the Harvard Medical School. He was professor 
of anatomy and physiology at Harvard for thirty-five years. 
As a writer of occasional poems he has had no equal. In 
poetry, light verse was his forte; in prose the conversational 
paper. He published the first of his conversational papers, 
under the title of The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, in the 
Atlantic Monthly in 1857, just after its foundation, and the last, 
in the same magazine under the title. Over the Tea-Cups, in 
1890. In 1 886 the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and 
Edinburgh conferred upon him the doctor's degree. 

The Chambered Nautilus (Holmes's favorite) 

This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, 

Sails the unshadowed main, — 

The venturous bark that flings 
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings, 
In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings, 

And coral reefs He bare, 
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair. 

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl; 

Wrecked is the ship of pearl ! 

And every chambered cell. 
Where its dim dreaming Hfe was wont to dwell, 
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell, 

Before thee lies revealed, — • 
Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed ! 

Year after year beheld the silent toil 

That spread his lustrous coil; 

Still, as the spiral grew, 
He left the past year's dwelling for the new, 
Stole with soft step its shining archway through, 

Built up its idle door, 
Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more. 

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee. 
Child of the wondering sea. 
Cast from her lap, forlorn ! 



Writei's of the Mid-Centuiy and After 179 

From thy dead lips a clearer note is born 
Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn ! 

While on mine ear it rings, 
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings: 

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, 

As the swift seasons roll ! 

Leave thy low-vaulted past ! 
Let each new temple, nobler than the last, 
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, 

Till thou at length art free, 
Leaving thine outgrown shell by Hfe's unresting sea ! 

The Height of the Ridiculous 

I wrote some lines once on a time 

In wondrous merry mood. 
And thought, as usual, men would say 

They were exceeding good. 

They were so queer, so very queer, 

I laughed as I would die; 
Albeit, in the general way, 

A sober man am I. 

I called my servant, and he came; 

How kind it was of him. 
To mind a slender man like me, 

He of the mighty limb ! 

"These to the printer," I exclaimed, 

And, in my humorous way, 
I added (as a trifling jest), 

"There'll be the devil to pay." 

He took the paper, and I watched, 

And saw him peep within ; 
At the first line he read, his face 

Was all upon the grin. 



180 American Literature 

He read the next; the grin grew broad, 

And shot from ear to ear; 
He read the third ; a chuckling noise 

I now began to hear. 

The fourth; he broke into a roar; 

The fifth; his waistband split; 
The sixth; he burst five buttons off, 

And tumbled in a fit. 

Ten days and nights, with sleepless eye, 

I watched that wretched man, 
And since, I never dare to write 

As funny as I can. 

The Deacon's Masterpiece 

or, the woistderful "one-hoss shay." a logical story 

Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay. 

That was built in such a logical way 

It ran a hundred years to a day, 

And then, of a sudden, it — ah, but stay, 

I'll tell you what happened without delay, 

Scaring the parson into fits, 

Frightening people out of their wits, — 

Have you ever heard of that, I say? 

Seventeen hundred and fifty-five, 
Georgius Secundus was then aUve, — 
Snuffy old drone from the German hive. 
That was the year when Lisbon-town 
Saw the earth open and gulp her down. 
And Braddock's army was done so brown, 
Left without a scalp to its crown. 
It was on the terrible Earthquake-day 
That the Deacon finished the one-hoss shay. 

Now in building of chaises, I tell you what, 
There is always somewhere a weakest spot, — 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 181 

In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill, 

In panel or cross-bar, or floor, or sill, 

In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace, — lurking still, 

Find it somewhere you must and will, — 

Above or below, or wdthin or without, — 

And that's the reason, beyond a doubt, 

That a chaise breaks down, but doesn't wear out. 

But the Deacon swore (as Deacons do. 
With an "I dew vum," or an "I tell yeou,^^) 
He would build one shay to beat the taown 
'n the Keounty 'n' all the Kentry raoun' ; 
It should be so built that it couldn' break daoun: 
— "Fur," said the Deacon, *"t's mighty plain 
Thut the weakes' place mus' stan' the strain; 
'n' the way t' fix it, uz I maintain. 

Is only jest 
T' make that place uz strong uz the rest." 

So the Deacon inquired of the \allage folk 

Where he could find the strongest oak. 

That couldn't be spht nor bent nor broke, — 

That was for spokes and floor and sills; 

He sent for lancewood to make the thills. 

The cross-bars were ash, from the straightest trees, 

The panels of white-wood, that cuts Uke cheese, 

But lasts like iron for things Hke these; 

The hubs of logs from the "Settler's ellum,"— 

Last of its timber, — they couldn't sell 'em, 

Never an axe had seen their chips. 

And the wedges flew from between their lips, 

Their blunt ends frizzled like celery tips; 

Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw, 

Spring, tire, axle, and linch-pin too, 

Steel of the finest, bright and blue; 

Thoroughbrace bison-skin, thick and wide; 

Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide 

Found in the pit when the tanner died. 

That was the way he "put her through." 

"There!" said the Deacon, "naow she'll dew!" 



1S':2 A7iu^?-ica?i Literature 

Do I I tell you. I rather guess 
She was a wonder, and nothing less ! 
Colts grew horses, beards turned gray. 
Deacon and deaconess dropped away, 
Children and grandcWldren — where were they? 
But there stood the stout old one-hoss shay 
As fresh as on Lisbon-earthquake-day ! 

Eighteen Hundred; — it came and found 
The Deacon's masterpiece strong and sound. 
Eighteen hundred increased by ten;— 
"Hahnsum kerridge" they called it tJien. 
Eighteen hundred and twenty came; — 
Running as usual; much the same. 
Thirty and forty at last arrive. 
And then come fifty, and fifty-frt:. 

Little of all we value here 

Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year 

Without both feeling and looking queer. 

In fact, there's nothing that keeps its youth, 

So far as I know, but a tree and truth. 

(This is a moral that runs at large; 

Take it. — You're welcome. — No extra charge.) 

First of Xo\t:5IBER. — the Earthquake-day — 
There are traces of age in the one-hoss shay, 
A general flavor of mild decay. 
But nothing local, as one may say. 
There couldn't be. — for the Deacon's art 
Had made it so like in every part 
That there wasn't a chance for one to start. 
For the wheels were just as strong as the thills. 
And the floor was just as strong as the sills, 
And the panels just as strong as the floor, 
And the whipple-tree neither less nor more. 
And the back cross-bar as strong as the fore, 
And spring and axle and hub encore. 
And yet. as a whole, it is past a doubt 
In another hour it ^^^I1 be ivorn out! 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 183 

First of November, 'Fifty-five I 

This morning the parson takes a drive. 

Now. small boys, get out of the way ! 

Here comes the wonderful one-hoss shay, 

Drawn by a rat-tailed, ewe-necked bay. 

"Huddup !" said the parson. — Oflf went they. 

The parson was working his Sunday's text, — 

Had got to fiflhly, and stopped perplexed 

At what the — Moses — was coming next. 

All at once the horse stood still. 

Close by the meet'n'-house on the hill. 

— First a shiver, and then a thrill. 

Then something decidedly like a spill, — 

And the parson was sitting upon a rock. 

At half-past nine by the meet'n'-house clock, — 

Just the hour of the Earthquake shock I 

- — What do you think the parson found, 
When he got up and stared around ? 
The poor old chaise in a heap or mound. 
As if it had been to the mill and ground I 
You see, of course, if you're not a dunce, 
How it went to pieces all at once, — 
All at once, and nothing first, — 
Just as bubbles do when they burst. 

End of the wonderful one-hoss shay. 
Logic is logic. That's all I say. 

(From The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, VI) 

Sin has many tools, but a He is the handle which fits 
them all. 

1 think, Sir, — said the di\dnity-student. — you must 

intend that for one of the sa\-ings of the Seven Wise Men 
of Boston you were speaking of the other day. 

I thank you, my young friend, — was my reply, — but 
I must say something better than that, before I could 
pretend to fill out the number. 



184 American Literature 

The schoolmistress wanted to know how many of 

these sayings there were on record, and what, and by 
whom said. 

Why, let us see, — there is that one of Benjamin 

FrankHn, "the great Bostonian," after whom this lad was 
named. To be sure, he said a great many wise things, — 
and I don't feel sure he didn't borrow this, — he speaks as 
if it were old. But then he appHed it so neatly ! — 

"He that has once done you a kindness will be more 
ready to do you another than he whom you yourself have 
obliged." 

Then there is that glorious Epicurean paradox, uttered 
by my friend, the Historian, in one of his flashing mo- 
ments: — 

"Give us the luxuries of life, and we will dispense with 
its necessaries." 

To these must certainly be added that other saying of 
one of the wittiest of men:^ 

"Good Americans, when they die, go to Paris." 

The divinity-student looked grave at this, but said 

nothing. 

The schoolmistress spoke out, and said she didn't think 
the wit meant any irreverence. It was only another way 
of saying, Paris is a heavenly place after New York or 
Boston. 

A jaunty-looking person, who had come in with the 
young fellow they call John, — evidently a stranger, — said 
there was one more wise man's saying that he had heard; 
it was about our place, but he didn't know who said it. 
— A civil curiosity was manifested by the company to 
hear the fourth wise saying. I heard him distinctly whis- 
pering to the young fellow who brought him to dinner, 
Shall I tell it? To which the answer was. Go ahead! — 
Well, — he said, — this was what I heard: — 

"Boston State-House is the hub of the solar system. 
You couldn't pry that out of a Boston man, if you had the 
tire of all creation straightened out for a crowbar." 

Sir, — said I, — I am gratified with your remark. It ex- 
presses with pleasing vivacity that which I have sometimes 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 185 

heard uttered \vith malignant dulness. The satire of the 
remark is essentially true of Boston, — and of all other 
considerable — and inconsiderable — places with which I 
have had the privilege of being acquainted. Cockneys 
think London is the only place in the world. Frenchmen 
— you remember the Hne about Paris, the Court, the World, 
etc. — I recollect well, by the way, a sign in that city which 
ran thus: ''Hotel de I'Univers et des Etats Unis"; and as 
Paris is the universe to a Frenchman, of course the United 
States are outside of it. — "See Naples and then die." — It 
is quite as bad with smaller places. I have been about, 
lecturing, you know, and have found the following propo- 
sitions to hold true of all of them: 

1. The axis of the earth sticks out visibly through the 
center of each and every town or city. 

2. If more than fifty years have passed since its founda- 
tion, it is affectionately styled by the inhabitants the 

"goo J old town of" (whatever its name may happen 

to be). 

3. Every collection of its inhabitants that comes to- 
gether to listen to a stranger is invariably declared to be 
a "remarkably intelUgent audience." 

4. The climate of the place is particularly favorable to 
longevity. 

5. It contains several persons of vast talent little known 
to the world. (One or two of them, you may perhaps 
chance to remember, sent short pieces to the "Pactolian" 
some time since, which were "respectfully declined.") 

Boston is just like the other places of its size; — only, 
perhaps, considering its excellent fish-market, paid fire- 
department, superior monthly pubKcations, and correct 
habit of spelling the English language, it has some right 
to look down on the mob of cities. I'll tell you, though, 
if you want to know it, what is the real offense of Boston. 
It drains a large water-shed of its intellect, and will not 
itself be drained. If it would only send away its first-rate 
men, instead of its second-rate ones (no offense to well- 
known exceptions, of which we are always proud,) we should 
be spared such epigrammatic remarks as that which the gen- 



186 American Literature 

tleman has quoted. There can never be a real metropolis 
in this country, until the biggest center can drain the lesser 
ones of their talent and wealth. — I have observed, by the 
way, that the people who really live in two great cities are 
by no means so jealous of each other, as are those of smaller 
cities situated within the intellectual basin, or suction- 
range, of one large one, of the pretensions of any other. 
Don't you see why? Because their promising young 
author and rising lawyer and large capitalist have been 
drained off to the neighboring big city, — their prettiest 
girl has been exported to the same market; all their am- 
bition points there, and all their thin gilding of glory comes 
from there. I hate Httle toad-eating cities. 

Would I be so good as to specify any particular 

example? — Oh, — an example? Did you ever see a bear- 
trap? Never? Well, shouldn't you like to see me put 
my foot into one? With sentiments of the highest con- 
sideration I must beg leave to be excused. 

Besides, some of the smaller cities are charming. If 
they have an old church or two, a few stately mansions of 
former grandees, here and there an old dwelling with the 
second story projecting (for the convenience of shooting 
the Indians knocking at the front-door with their toma- 
hawks), — if they have, scattered about, those mighty 
square houses built something more than half a century 
ago, and standing like architectural boulders dropped by 
the former diluvium of wealth, whose refluent wave has 
left them as its monument, — if they have gardens with 
elbowed apple-trees that push their branches over the 
high board-fence and drop their fruit on the side-walk,— 
if they have a little grass in the side-streets, enough to 
betoken quiet without proclaiming decay, — I think I could 
go to pieces, after my Hfe's work were done, in one of those 
tranquil places, as sweetly as in any cradle that an old 
man may be rocked to sleep in. I visit such spots always 
with infinite dehght. My friend, the Poet, says, that 
rapidly growing towns are most unfavorable to the imag- 
inative and reflective faculties. Let a man live in one of 
these old quiet places, he says, and the wdne of his soul, 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 187 

which is kept thick and turbid by the rattle of busy streets, 
settles, and, as you hold it up, you may see the sun through 
it by day and the stars by night. 

Do I think that the little villages have the conceit 

of the great towns?— I don't beheve there is much differ- 
ence. You know how they read Pope's line in the smallest 
town in our State of Massachusetts? — -Well, they read it: 

"All are but parts of one stupendous Hull !/' 

What I wanted to say about books is this: that there 
are times in which every active mind feels itself above any 
and all human books. 

1 think a man must have a good opinion of him- 
self, Sir, — said the divinity-student, — ^who should feel him- 
self above Shakespeare at any time. 

My young friend, — I replied, — the man who is never 
conscious of any state of feehng or of intellectual effort 
entirely beyond expression by any form of words what- 
soever is a mere creature of language. I can hardly be- 
heve there are any such men. Why, think for a moment 
of the power of music. The nerves that make us alive to 
it spread out (so the Professor tells me) in the most sensi- 
tive region of the marrow, just where it is widening to run 
upwards into the hemispheres. It has its seat in the region 
of sense rather than of thought. Yet it produces a con- 
tinuous and, as it were, logical sequence of emotional and 
intellectual changes; but how different from trains of 
thought proper ! how entirely beyond the reach of sym- 
bols ! — Think of human passions as compared with all 
phrases ! Did you ever hear of a man's growing lean by 
the reading of "Romeo and JuHet," or blowing his brains 
out because Desdemona was maligned? There are a good 
many symbols, even, that are more expressive than words. 
I remember a young wife who had to part with her husband 
for a time. She did not write a mournful poem; indeed, 
she was a silent person, and perhaps hardly said a word 
about it; but she quietly turned of a deep orange color 
with jaundice. A great many people in this world have 



188 American Literature 

but one form of rhetoric for their profoundest experiences, 
— namely, to waste away and die. When a man can read, 
his paroxysm of feeling is passing. When he can read, his 
thought has slackened its hold. — You talk about reading 
Shakespeare, using him as an expression for the highest 
intellect, and you wonder that any common person should 
be so presumptuous as to suppose his thought can rise 
above the text which hes before him. But think a mo- 
ment. A child's reading of Shakespeare is one thing, and 
Coleridge's or Schlegel's reading of him is another. The 
saturation-point of each mind differs from that of every 
other. But I think it is as true for the small mind which 
can only take up a little as for the great one which takes 
up much, that the suggested trains of thought and feehng 
ought always to rise above — not the author, but the 
reader's mental version of the author, whoever he may be. 

I think most readers of Shakespeare sometimes find 
themselves thrown into exalted mental conditions like 
those produced by music. Then they may drop the book, 
to pass at once into the region of thought without words. 
We may happen to be very dull folks, you and I, and prob- 
ably are, unless there is some particular reason to suppose 
the contrary. But we get glimpses now and then of a 
sphere of spiritual possibihties, where we, dull as we are 
now, may sail in vast circles round the largest compass of 
earthly intelHgences. 

1 confess there are times when I feel like the friend 

I mentioned to you some time ago, — I hate the very sight 
of a book. Sometimes it becomes almost a physical ne- 
cessity to talk out what is in the mind, before putting any- 
thing else into it. It is very bad to have thoughts and 
feelings, which were meant to come out in talk, strike in, 
as they say of some complaints that ought to show out- 
wardly. 

I always believed in life rather than in books. I sup- 
pose every day of earth, with its hundred thousand deaths 
and something more of births, — with its loves and hates, 
its triumphs and defeats, its pangs and bHsses, has more 
of humanity in it than all the books that were ever written, 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 189 

put together. I believe the flowers growing at this mo- 
ment send up more fragrance to heaven than was ever 
exhaled from all the essences ever distilled. 

Don't I read up various matters to talk about at 

this table or elsewhere ? — No, that is the last thing I would 
do. I will tell you my rule. Talk about those subjects 
you have had long in your mind, and hsten to what others 
say about subjects you have studied but recently. Knowl- 
edge and timber shouldn't be much used till they are sea- 
soned. 

Physiologists and metaphysicians have had their 

attention turned a good deal of late to the automatic and 
involuntary actions of the mind. Put an idea into your in- 
telligence and leave it there an hour, a day, a year, without 
ever having occasion to refer to it. When, at last, you 
return to it, you do not find it as it was when acquired. It 
has domicihated itself, so to speak, — become at home, — 
entered into relations with your other thoughts and inte- 
grated itself with the whole fabric of the mind. — Or take 
a simple and familiar example. You forget a name, in 
conversation, — go on talking, without making any effort 
to recall it, — and presently the mind evolves it by its own 
involuntary and unconscious action, while you were pur- 
suing another train of thought, and the name rises of itself 
to your Hps. 

There are some curious observations I should Hke to 
make about the mental machinery, but I think we are 
getting rather didactic. 

1 should be gratified, if Benjamin Franklin would 

let me know something of his progress in the French lan- 
guage. I rather Hked that exercise he read us the other 
day, though I must confess I should hardly dare to trans- 
late it, for fear some people in a remote city where I once 
Hved might think I was drawing their portraits. 

Yes, Paris is a famous place for societies. I don't 

know whether the piece I mentioned from the French 
author was intended simply as Natural History, or whether 
there was not a little maHce in his description. At any 
rate, when I gave my translation to B. F. to turn back 



190 American Literature 

again into French, one reason was that I thought it would 
sound a little bald in English, and some people might think 
it was meant to have some local bearing or other, — which 
the author, of course, didn't mean, inasmuch as he could 
not be acquainted with anything on this side the water. 

[The above remarks were addressed to the schoolmistress, 
to whom I handed the paper after looking it over. The 
divinity-student came and read over her shoulder, — very 
curious, apparently, but his eyes wandered, I thought. 
Seeing that her breathing was a Httle hurried and high, or 
thoracic, as my friend the Professor calls it, I watched her 
a little more closely. — It is none of my business. — After 
all, it is the imponderables that move the world, — heat, 
elei;tricity, love. — Habet.] 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

I. Emerson 

For Further Illustration 
Prose: 

Compensation. 
Self -Reliance. 

Poems : 

Each and All. 

May-Day. 

The Humble Bee. 

The Rhodora. 

The Snow Storm. 

Threnody. 

For Collateral Reading 

Alcott, A. Bronson: Concord Days. 

Swift, Lindsay: Brook Farm. (In National Studies in American 

Letters.) 
Whitman, W.: A Visit to Emerson. 

By Emerson's Grave. (In Specimen Days.) 

II. Thoreau 

For Further Illustration 

Walden: (Chapters I on Economy and IV on Sounds and selec- 
tions in Carpenter's American Prose). 



workers of the Mid- Century and After 191 

For Collateral Reading 

Alcott, L. : Thoreau's Flute. (In Stedman's An American 

Anthology.) 
Channing, W. E.: Tears in Spring. (In Stedman's An American 
Anthology.) 

III. Hawthorne 

For Further Illustration 
Short Stories: 

Ethan Brand. 

Dr. Heidegger's Experiment. 

Mr. Higgenhothani's Catastrophe. 

The Gentle Boy. 

The Gray Champio7t. 

The Great Stone Face. 
Novel : 

The House of the Seven Gables. 

For Collateral Reading 

Alcott, L.: Hawthorne, a Sonnet. (In Stedman's An American 

Anthology.) 
Longfellow, H. W.: Hawthorne. 

IV. Longfellow 
For Further Illustration 

Hiawatha. 

Keramos. 
j My Lost Youth. 

I Tales of a Wayside Inn. (See Dramatization, by S. E. Simons 
and C. T. Orr, for a dramatization of these poems.) 

The Children's Hour. 

The Courtship of Miles Standish. 

The Old Clock on the Stairs. 

For Collateral Reading 

Bent, S. A.: The Wayside Inn, Its History and Literattire. 

Hawthorne, N.: Grandfather's Chair, II, VIII. 

Whitman, W. : The Death of Longfellow. (In Specimen Days.) 

V. Whittier 

For Further Illustration 

Burns. 
ij In School Days. 



192 American Literature 

Snow- Bound. (Compare with Goldsmith's Deserted Village and 

Burns's The Cotter's Saturday Night.) 
The Barefoot Boy. 

The Buskers. (From the Songs of Labor.) 
The Shoemakers. 
The Tent on the Beach. (Compare with Longfellow's Tales of a 

Wayside I tin.) 
The Trailing Arbutus. 

For Collateral Reading 

Holmes, O. W.: On Whittier's Birthday. 
Longfellow, H. W.: The Three Silences of Molinos. 
Lowell, J. R.: To Whittier on His Seventy-Fifth Birthday. 
Pickard, S. T.: Whittier-Land. 



VI. Lowell 

For Further Illustration 

Biglow Papers. (Selected poems.) 

Commemoration Ode. 

Fable for Critics. (Passage on himself.) 

The First Snowfall. (Compare with Emerson's The Snow Storm.) 

The Present Crisis. 

The Singing Leaves. 

For Collateral Reading 

Longfellow, H. W. : The Herons of Elmwood. 
Whittier, J. G. : Welcome to Lowell. 



VII. Holmes 

For Further Illustration 
Poems: 

The Ballad of the Oyster-Man. 

The Broomstick Train. 

Old Ironsides. 

The Last Leaf. 
Prose: 

Over the Tea-Cups. (" Paper on Old Age.") 

The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table. ("Paper on Old Age," VII. 
" A Walk with the Schoolmistress," XII.) 

The Poet at the Breakfast-Table. (Pp. 10-32.) 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 193 

For Collateral Reading 
Higginson, T. W.: Old Cambridge. 
Lowell, J. R.: A Fable for Critics. (Passage on Holmes.) 

11. Of Lesser Note 

Though the eminent men just noticed set the literary 
standards for America at this time, during the entire 
period, of their supremacy, lesser men were making for 
themselves somewhat of name and fame in the world of 
literature. As the frontier was pushed farther and far- 
ther westward, writers sprang up here and there and every- 
where, and in many cases their contribution was so dis- 
tinctive, so unique, so "American" as to compel attention 
not only from the reading public but from the literary 
coterie as well. The leading ones are noted below. 



si 



PROSE — FltTION 



I. Harriet Beecher Stowe (1812-1896), sister of Henry 
Ward Beecher, is remembered to-day for her novel Uncle • 
Tom's Cabin, which has been translated into more than forty 
languages. In reply to modern criticism concerning this work, 
Professor Trent says: " A book that stirs the world, and is 
instrumental in bringing on a civil war and freeing an enslaved 
race may well elicit the admiration of a more sophisticated 
generation." " It was," says Mr. Hamilton Wright Mabie, " pri- 
marily the dramatization of a great issue in terms of human 
conditions, and incidentally a moving novel." 

TOPSY 

(From Uncle Tom^s Cabin, Chapter XX) 

One morning, while Miss OpheHa was busy in some of 

her domestic cares, St. Clare's voice was heard, calling her 

at the foot of the stairs. 

"Come down here, cousin; I've something to show you." 

"What is it?" said Miss Ophelia, coming down, with her 

sewing in her hand. 



194 American Literature 

"I've made a purchase for your department — see here," 
said St. Clare; and, with the word, he pulled along a little 
negro girl, about eight or nine years of age. 

She was one of the blackest of her race; and her round, 
shining eyes, glittering as glass beads, moved with quick 
and restless glances over everything in the room. Her 
mouth, half open with astonishment at the wonders of 
the new Mas'r's parlor, displayed a white and brilliant set 
of teeth. Her woolly hair was braided in sundry little 
tails, which stuck out in every direction. The expression 
of her face was an odd mixture of shrewdness and cunning, 
over which was oddly drawn, like a kind of veil, an expres- 
sion of the most doleful gravity and solemnity. She was 
dressed in a single filthy, ragged garment, made of bagging; 
and stood with her hands demurely folded before her. 
Altogether, there was something odd and goblin-like about 
her appearance, — something, as Miss Opheha afterwards 
said, "so heathenish," as to inspire that good lady with 
utter dismay; and, turning to St. Clare, she said, — 

"Augustine, what in the world have you brought that 
thing here for?" 

"For you to educate, to be sure, and train in the way 
she should go. I thought she was rather a funny specimen 
in the Jim Crow line. Here, Topsy," he added, giving a 
whistle, as a man would to call the attention of a dog, 
"give us a song, now, and show us some of your dancing." 

The black glassy eyes glittered with a kind of wicked 
drollery, and the thing struck up, in a clear shrill voice, an 
odd negro melody, to which she kept time with her hands 
and feet, spinning round, clapping her hands, knocking 
her knees together, in a wild, fantastic sort of time, and 
producing in her throat all those odd guttural sounds which 
distinguish the native music of her race; and finally, turn- 
ing a sommerset or two, and giving a prolonged closing note, 
as odd and unearthly as that of a steam-whistle, she came 
suddenly down on the carpet, and stood with her hands 
folded, and a most sanctimonious expression of meekness 
and solemnity over her face, only broken by the cunning 
glances which she shot askance from the corners of her 
eyes. 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 195 

Miss Ophelia stood silent, perfectly paralyzed with 
amazement. 

St. Clare, like a mischievous fellow as he was, appeared 
to enjoy her astonishment; and, addressing the child again, 
said, — 

"Topsy, this is your new mistress. I'm going to give 
you up to her; see, now, that you behave yourself." 

"Yes, Mas'r," said Topsy, with sanctimonious gravity, 
her wicked eyes twinkhng as she spoke. 

"You're going to be good, Topsy, you understand," said 
St. Clare. 

"Oh, yes, Mas'r," said Topsy, with another twinkle, 
her hands still devoutly folded. 

"Now, Augustine, what upon earth is this for ? " said Miss 
Ophelia. 

"Well, . . . cousin," said St. Clare, drawing her aside, 
. . . "the fact is, this concern belonged to a couple of 
drunken creatures that keep a low restaurant that I have 
to pass by every day, and I was tired of hearing her scream- 
ing, and them beating and swearing at her. She looked 
bright and funny, too, as if something might be made of 
her, — so I bought her, and I'll give her to you. Try, now, 
and give her a good orthodox New England bringing up, 
and see what it'll make of her. You know I haven't any 
gift that way; but I'd like you to try." 

"Well, I'll do what I can," said Miss Ophelia; and she 
approached her new subject very much as a person might 
be supposed to approach a black spider, supposing him to 
have benevolent designs toward it. 

"She's dreadfully dirty, and half naked," she said. 

"Well, take her down stairs, and make some of them 
clean and clothe her up." 

When arrayed at last in a suit of decent and whole cloth- 
ing, her hair cropped short to her head, Miss OpheHa, with 
some satisfaction said she looked more ChristianHke than 
she did, and in her own mind began to mature some plans 
for her instruction. 



196 American Literature 

Sitting down before her, she began to question her. 

"How old are you, Topsy?" 

"Dunno, Missis," said the image, with a grin that showed 
all her teeth. 

''Don't know how old you are? Didn't anybody ever 
tell you ? Who was your mother ? " 

"Never had none !" said the child, with another grin. 

"Never had any mother ? What do you mean ? Where 
were you born?" 

"Never was born!" persisted Topsy, with another grin, 
that looked so gobhn-hke, that if Miss Ophelia had been 
at all nervous she might have fancied that she had got 
hold of some sooty gnome from the land of Diablerie; 
but Miss Ophelia was not nervous, but plain and business- 
Uke, and she said, with some sternness, — 

"You mustn't answer me in that way, child; I'm not 
playing with you. Tell me where you were born, and 
who your father and mother were." 

"Never was born," reiterated the creature, more em- 
phatically; "never had no father nor mother, nor nothin', 
I was raised by a speculator, with lots of others. Old 
Aunt Sue used to take car on us." 

"How long have you lived with your master and mis- 
tress?" 

"Dunno, Missis." 

"Is it a year, or more, or less?" 

"Dunno, Missis." 

"Have you ever heard anything about God, Topsy?" 

The child looked bewildered, but grinned as usual. 

" Do you know who made you ? " •v 

"Nobody, as I knows on," said the child, with a short 
laugh. 

The idea appeared to amuse her considerably; for her 
eyes twinkled, and she added,— 

"I spect I grow'd. Don't think nobody never made me." 

"Do you know how to sew?" said Miss Ophelia, who 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 197 

thought she would turn her inquiries to something more 
tangible. 

"No, Missis." 

"What can you do? — what did you do for 3'our master 
and mistress?" 

"Fetch water, and wash dishes, and rub knives, and wait 
on folks." 

"Were they good to you?" 

"Spect they was," said the child, scanning Miss Ophelia 
cunningly. 

Miss Ophelia rose from this encouraging colloquy; St. 
Clare was leaning over the back of her chair. 

"You find virgin soil there, cousin; put in your own 
ideas', — you won't find many to pull up." 



2. Helen Fiske Jackson, " Helen Hunt " (1831-1885), was 
born in Amherst, Massachusetts. It was through her poems 
that she first gained a place in the world of literature. Her 
great novel Ramona grew out of her experiences as special 
examiner to the mission Indians of California and, in a measure, 
did for the Indian what Uncle Tom's Cabin did for the negro. 
It is hoped that the following excerpt will stimulate a desire to 
read the whole story. 

Dawn at the Moreno Ranch 

(From Ramona, a Story, Chapter V) 

The room in which Father Salvierderra always slept 
when at the Senora Moreno's house was the southeast 
corner room. It had a window to the south and one to 
the east. When the first glow of dawn came in the sky, 
this eastern window was lit up as by a fire. The Father 
was always on watch for it, having usually been at prayer 
for hours. As the first ray reached the wdndow, he would 
throw the casement wide open, and standing there with 
bared head, strike up the melody of the sunrise hymn sung 
in all devout Mexican families. It was a beautiful custom, 
not yet wholly abandoned. At the first dawn of light, the 
oldest member of the family arose, and began singing some 



198 ATuerican Literature 

hymn familiar to the household. It was the duty of each 
person hearing it to immediately rise, or at least sit up in 
bed, and join in the singing. In a few moments the whole 
family would be singing, and the joyous sounds pouring 
out from the house Hke the music of the birds in the fields 
at dawn. The hymns were usually invocations to the 
Virgin, or to the saint of the day, and the melodies were 
sweet and simple. 

On this morning there was another watcher for the dawn 
besides Father Salvierderra. It was Alessandro, who had 
been restlessly wandering about since midnight, and had 
finally seated himself under the willow trees by the brook, 
at the spot where he had seen Ramona the evening before. 
He recollected this custom of the sunrise h}Tnn when he 
and his band were at the Senora's the last year, and he had 
chanced then to learn that the Father slept in the south- 
east room. From the spot where he sat, he could see the 
south window of this room. He could also see the low 
eastern horizon, at which a faint luminous line already 
showed. The sky was like amber; a few stars still shone 
faintly in the zenith. There was not a sound. It was 
one of those rare moments in which one can without dif- 
ficulty realize the noiseless spinning of the earth through 
space. Alessandro knew nothing of this; he could not 
have been made to believe that the earth was moving. 
He thought the sun was coming up apace, and the earth 
was standing still, — a behef just as grand, just as thrihing, 
so far as all that goes, as the other: men worshipped the 
sun long before they found out that it stood still. 



His eyes wandered from the horizon line of slowly in- 
creasing light, to the windows of the house, yet dark and 
still. "Which window is hers? Will she open it when 
the song begins?" he thought. "Is it on this side of the 
house? Who can she be? She was not here last year. 
Saw the saints ever so beautiful a creature !" 

At last came the full red ray across the meadow. Ales- 
sandro sprang to his feet. In the next second Father 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 199 

Salvierderra flung up his south window, and leaning out, his 
cowl thrown off, his thin gray locks streaming back, began 
in a feeble but not unmelodious voice to sing — 

"O beautiful Queen, 
Princess of Heaven." 

Before he had finished the second line, a half-dozen voices 
had joined in— the Senora, from her room at the west end 
of the veranda, beyond the flowers; Felipe, from the ad- 
joining room; Ramona, from hers, the next; and Marga- 
rita and other of the maids already astir in the wings of 
the house. 



" Singers at dawn 
From the heavens above 
People all regions; 
Gladly we too sing," 

continued the hymn, the birds corroborating the stanza. 
Then men's voices joined in. The hymn was a favorite 
one, known to all. 

" Come, O sinners. 
Come, and we will sing 
Tender hymns 
To our refuge," 

was the chorus, repeated after each of the five verses of 
the hymn. 

Alessandro also knew the hymn well. His father. Chief 
Pablo, had been the leader of the choir at the San Luis 
Rey Mission in the last years of its splendor, and had 
brought away with him much of the old choir music. Some 
of the books had been written by his own hand, on parch- 
ment. He not only sang well, but was a good player on 
the vioHn. There was not at any of the missions so fine a 
band of performers on stringed instruments as at San 
Luis Rey. 

Alessandro had inherited his father's love and talent for 



200 American Literature 

music, and knew all the old mission music by heart. This 
hymn to the 

" Beautiful Queen, 
Princess of Heaven," 

was one of his special favorites ; and as he heard verse after 
verse rising, he could not forbear striking in. 

At the first notes of this rich new voice, Ramona's voice 
ceased in surprise; and, throwing up her window, she 
leaned out, eagerly looking in all directions to see who it 
could be. Alessandro saw her, and sang no more. 

"What could it have been? Did I dream it?" thought 
Ramona, drew in her head, and began to sing again. 

With the next stanza of the chorus, the same rich bari- 
tone notes. They seemed to float in under all the rest, 
and bear them along, as a great wave bears a boat. Ra- 
mona had never heard such a voice. Fehpe had a good 
tenor, and she Hked to sing with him, or to hear him; 
but this — this was from another world, this sound. Ra- 
mona felt every note of it penetrating her consciousness 
with a subtle thrill almost like pain. When the hymn 
ended, she Hstened eagerly, hoping Father Salvierderra 
would strike up a second hymn, as he often did; but he 
did not this morning; there was too much to be done; 
everybody was in a hurry to be at work: windows shut, 
doors opened; the sounds of voices from all directions, 
ordering, questioning, answering, began to be heard. The 
sun rose and let a flood of work-a-day light on the whole 
place. 

3. Louisa M. Alcott (183 2-1 888) was the daughter of Amos 
Bronson Alcott, who was associated with Emerson, Thoreau, 
and other Transcendentalists. She became a popular writer- 
for young folks. Her Little Men and Little Women are dear to 
the hearts of most boys and girls. The latter was dramatized 
in 191 2 and met with great success on the New York stage. 

Charles F. Browne, "Artemus Ward" (1834-1867), 
Henry W. Shaw, "Josh Billings" (1818-1885), and Edgar 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 201 

Wilson Nye, "Bill Nye" (1850-1896), were popular en- 
tertainers in their day and contributed to the written record 
of American humor. Characteristic extracts follow. 

4. Charles F. Browne (Artemus Ward). 
Woman's Rights 

I pitcht my tent in a small town in Injianny one day 
last season, & while I was standin at the dore takin money, 
a deppytashum of ladies came up & sed they wos members 
of the Bunkumville Female Reformin & Wimin's Rite's 
Associashun, and they axed me if they cood go in without 
payin. 

"Not exactly," sez I, "but you can pay without goin in." 

"Dew you know who we air?" said one of the wimin — 
a tall and feroshus lookin critter, with a blew kotton um- 
breller under her arm — "do you know who we air, Sur?" 

"My impreshun is," sed I, "from a kersery view, that 
you air females." 

"We air, Sur," said the feroshus woman — "we belong 
to a Sosiety whitch beleeves wimin has rites — whitch 
beleeves in razin her to her proper speer — whitch beleeves 
she is indowed with as much intelleck as man is — whitch 
beleeves she is trampled on and aboozed — & who will 
resist henso4th & forever the incroachments of proud & 
domineering men." 

Durin her discourse, the exsentric female grabbed me 
by the coat-kollor & was swinging her umbreller wildly 
over my hed. 

"I hope, marm," sez I, starting back, "that your in- 
tensions is honorable ! I'm a lone man here in a strange 
■ place. Besides, I've a wife to hum." 

"Yess," cried the female, "& she's a slave! Doth she 
never dream of freedom — doth she never think of throwiq 
off the yoke of tyrrinny & thinkin & votin for herself ?-» 
Doth she never think of these here things?" 

"Not bein a natral born fool," sed I, by this time a 
little riled, "I kin safely say that she dothunt." 



•202 American Literature 

"Oh whot — whot!" screamed the female, swinging her 
umbreller in the air. "Oh, what is the price that woman 
pays for her experiunce." 

"I don't know," sez I; "the price of my show is 15 cents 
pur individooal." 

"& can't our Sosiety go in free?" asked the female. 

"Not if I know it," sed I. 

"Crooil, crooil man !" she cried, & bust into teers. 



"My female friends," sed I, "before you leeve, I've a 
few remarks ! wa them well. The female woman is one 
of the greatest institooshuns of which this land can boste. 
Its onpossible to get along without her. Had ther bin no 
female wimin in the world, I should scarcely be here with 
my unpareleld show on this occashun. She is good in 
sickness — -good in wellness— good at the time. O woman, 
woman!" I cried, my feelins worked up to a hi poetick 
pitch. "You air a angle when you behave yourself; but 
when you take off you proper appairel & (mettyforically 
speaken)— get into panty loons — when you desert your 
firesides, & with your beds full of wimin's rites noshuns 
go round like roarin lions, seekin whom you may devour 
someboddy — in short, when you undertake to play the 
man, you play the devil and air an emfatic noosance. My 
female friends," I continnered, as they were indignantly 
departin, "wa well what A. Ward has sed !" 

5. Henry W. Shaw (Josh BiUings). 

The Bumblebee 

The bumblebee iz a kind ov big fly who goes muttering 
and swareing around the lots, during the summer, looking 
after little boys to sting them, and stealing hunny out ov 
the dandylions and thissells. He iz mad all the time about 
sumthing, and don't seem to kare a kuss what people 
think ov him. A skoolboy will studdy harder enny time 
to find a bumblebee's nest than he will to get hiz lesson in 
arithmetik, and when he haz found it, and got the hunny 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 203 

out ov it, and got badly stung into the bargin, he finds 
thare ain't mutch margin in it. Next to poor molassis, 
bumblebee hunny iz the poorest kind ov sweetmeats in 
market. Bumblebees hav allwuss been in fashion, and 
probably allwuss will be, but whare the fun or profit lays 
in them i never could cyper out. The proffit don't seem 
to be in the hunny, nor in the bumblebee neither. They 
bild their nest in the ground, or enny whare else they take 
a noshun to. It ain't afrade to fite a whole distrikt skool 
if they meddle with them. I don't blame the bumblebee 
nor enny other fellow, for defending hiz sugar; it iz the fust 
and last Law ov natur, and i hope the law won't never run 
out. The smartest thing about the bumblebee iz their 
stinger. 

6. Edgar Wilson Nye (Bill Nye). 

The Garden Hose 

It is now the proper time for the cross-eyed woman to 
fool with the garden hose. I have faced death in almost 
every form, and I do not know what fear is, but when a 
woman with one eye gazing into the Zodiac and the other 
peering into the middle of next week, and wearing one of 
those floppy sunbonnets, picks up the nozle of the garden 
hose and turns on the full force of the institution, I fly 
wildly to the Mountains of Hepsidam. 

Water won't hurt any one, of course, if care is used not 
to forget and drink any of it, but it is this horrible suspense 
and uncertainty about facing the nozle of a garden hose in 
the hands of a cross-eyed woman that unnerves and par- 
alyzes me. 

Instantaneous death is nothing to me. I am as cool and 
collected where leaden rain and iron hail are thickest, as 
I would be in my own office writing the obituary of the man 
who steals my jokes. But I hate to be drowned slowly 
in my good clothes and on dry land, and have my dying 
gaze rest on a woman whose ravishing beauty would drive 
a narrow-gage mule into convulsions and make him hate 
himself t' death. 



204 American Literature 

7. Donald Grant Mitchell, "Ik Marvel " (1822-1908), was 
a graduate of Yale. His best-known work is Reveries of a 
Bachelor (1850), which was immensely popular a generation or 
two ago. His writings have a freshness and charm which are 
rarely found. 

The Sea 
(From Reveries of a Bachelor — "Fourth Reverie") 

The sea is around me. The last headlands have gone 
down under the horizon, like the city steeples, as you lose 
yourself in the calm of the country, or like the great thoughts 
of genius, as you slip from the pages of poets into your 
own quiet Reverie. 

The waters skirt me right and left; there is nothing 
but water before, and only water behind. Above me are 
sailing clouds, or the blue vault, which we call, with child- 
ish license, heaven. The sails white and full, like helping 
friends, are pushing me on; and night and day are dis- 
tent with the winds which come and go — none know 
whence, and none know whither. A land-bird flutters 
aloft, weary with long flying, and lost in a world where 
are no forests but the careening masts, and no foHage but 
the drifts of spray. It cleaves a while to the smooth spars, 
till urged by some homeward yearning, it bears off in the 
face of the wind, and sinks and rises over the angry waters, 
until its strength is gone, and the blue waves gather the 
poor flutterer to their cold and glassy bosom. 

All the morning I see nothing beyond me but the waters, 
or a tossing company of dolphins; all the noon, unless 
some white sail, like a ghost, stalks the horizon, there is 
still nothing but the rolling seas; all the evening, after 
the sun has grown big and sunk under the water-line, and 
the moon risen white and cold to glimmer across the tops 
of the surging ocean, there is nothing but the sea and the 
sky to lead off thought, or to crush it with their greatness. 

Hour after hour as I sit in the moonlight upon the taff- 
rail, the great waves gather far back and break, — and gather 
nearer, and break louder, — and gather again, and roll down 
swift and terrible under the creaking ship, and heave it up 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 205 

lightly upon their swelling surge, and drop it gently to 
their seething and yeasty cradle, like an infant in the 
swaying arms of a mother, or like a shadowy memory upon 
the billows of manly thought. 

Conscience wakes in the silent nights of ocean; life lies 
open like a book, and spreads out as level as the sea. Re- 
grets and broken resolutions chase over the soul like swift- 
winged night-birds; and all the unsteady heights and the 
wastes of action Hft up distinct and clear from the uneasy 
but limpid depths of memory. . . . 

But ocean has its storms, when fear will make strange 
and holy companionship; and even here my memory 
shifts swiftly and suddenly. 

It is a dreadful night. The passengers are clus- 
tered, trembling, below. Every plank shakes; and the 
oak ribs groan as if they suffered with their toil. The 
hands are all aloft; the captain is forward shouting to the 
mate in the cross-trees, and I am clinging to one of the 
stanchions by the binnacle. The ship is pitching madly, 
and the waves are toppHng up sometimes as high as the 
yard-arm, and then dipping away with a whirl under our 
keel, that makes every timber in the vessel quiver. The 
thunder is roaring like a thousand cannons; and at the 
moment the sky is cleft with a stream of fire that glares 
over the tops of the waves, and gUstens on the wet decks 
and the spars, — Hghting up all so plain, that I can see the 
men's faces in the main-top, and catch glimpses of the 
reefers on the yard-arm, clinging Hke death; — then all is 
horrible darkness. 

The spray spits angrily against the canvas; the waves 
crash against the weather-bow like mountains; the wind 
howls through the rigging, or, as a gasket gives way, the 
sail, bellying to leeward, splits like a crack of a musket. 
I hear the captain in the lulls screaming out orders; and 
the mate in the rigging screaming them over, until the 
hghtning comes, and the thunder, deadening their voices 
as if they were chirping sparrows. 

In one of the flashes I see a hand upon the yard-arm 
lose his foothold as the ship gives a plunge; but his arms 



206 American Literature 

are clenched around the spar. Before I can see any more, 
the blackness comes, and the thunder, with a crash that 
half deafens me. I think I hear a low cry, as the mutter- 
ings die away in the distance; and at the next flash of 
lightning, which comes in an instant, I see upon the top 
of one of the waves along-side the poor reefer who has 
fallen. The Hghtning glares upon his face. 

But he has caught at a loose bit of running rigging as 
he fell; and I see it slipping off the coil upon the deck. I 
shout madly, "Man overboard !" and catch the rope, when 
I can see nothing again. The sea is too high, and the man 
too heavy for me. I shout, and shout, and shout, and feel 
the perspiration starting in great beads from my forehead 
as the Kne sHps through my fingers. 

Presently the captain feels his way aft and takes hold 
with me; and the cook comes as the coil is nearly spent, 
and we pull together upon him. It is desperate work for 
the sailor; for the ship is drifting at a prodigious rate; but 
he cHngs like a dying man. 

By-and-by at a flash we see him on a crest two oars' 
length away from the vessel. 

"Hold on, my man !" shouts the captain. 

"For God's sake, be quick!" says the poor fellow, and 
he goes down in the trough of the sea. We pull the harder, 
and the captain keeps calling to him to keep up courage and 
hold strong. But in the hush we can hear him say, — 'T 
can't hold out much longer; I'm 'most gone !" 

Presently we have brought the man where we can lay 
hold of him, and are only waiting for a good Hft of the sea 
to bring him up, when the poor fellow groans out, — "It's 
no use — I can't — good-by!" And a wave tosses the end 
of the rope clean upon the bulwarks. 

At the next flash I see him going down under the water. 

I grope my way below, sick and faint at heart; and 
wedging myself into my narrow berth, I try to sleep. But 
the thunder and the tossing of the ship, and the face of 
the drowning man as he said good-by, peering at me from 
every corner, will not let me sleep. 

Afterward come quiet seas, over which we boom along, 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 207 

leaving in our track at night a broad path of phosphores- 
cent splendor. The sailors bustle around the decks as if 
they had lost no comrade; and the voyagers, losing the 
pallor of fear, look out earnestly for the land. 

At length my eyes rest upon the coveted fields of Britain; 
and in a day more the bright face, looking out beside me, 
sparkles at sight of the sweet cottages which lie along the 
green Essex shores. Broad-sailed yachts, looking strangely 
yet beautiful, ghde upon the waters of the Thames like 
swans; black, square-rigged colHers from the Tyne lie 
grouped in sooty cohorts; and heavy, three-decked India- 
men — of which I had read in story-books — ^drift slowly 
down with the tide. Dingy steamers, with white pipes 
and with red pipes, whiz past us to the sea; and now my 
eye rests on the great palace of Greenwich; I see the 
wooden-legged pensioners smoking under the palace-walls, 
and above them upon the hill — as Heaven is true — that 
old fabulous Greenwich, the great center of schoolboy 
Longitude. 

Presently, from under a cloud of murky smoke, heaves 
up the vast dome of St. Paul's and the tall Column of 
the Fire, and the white turrets of London Tower. Our 
ship glides through the massive dock-gates, and is moored 
amid the forest of masts which bears golden fruit for 
ritons. 



8. Edward Everett Hale (1822-1909) was born in Boston 
and educated at Harvard. He was a distinguished Unitarian 
minister who won deserved fame in the literary world through 
his story The Man Without a Country, published in 1863. This 
is now recognized as one of our classics. One of his most amus- 
ing short stories is given below. 

My Double and How He Undid Me 
(slightly abridged) 

... I am, or rather was, a minister, of the Sandemanian 
connection. I was settled in the active, wide-awake town 
of Naguadavick, on one of the finest water-powers in Maine. 



208 American Literature 

We used to call it a Western town in the heart of the civ- 
ilization of New England. A charming place it was and is. 
A spirited, brave young parish had I, and it seemed as if 
we might have all "the joy of eventful Hving" to our 
heart's content. . . . 

I had not been at work a year before I found I was Hving 
two lives, one real and one merely functional — ^for two 
sets of people, one my parish, whom I loved, and the other 
a vague pubhc, for whom I did not care two straws. All 
this was a vague notion, which everybody had and has, 
that this second life would eventually bring out some great 
results, unknown at present, to somebody somewhere. 

Crazed by this duahty of Ufe, I first read Doctor Wigan 
on the "Duality of the Brain," hoping that I could train 
one side of my head to do these outside jobs, and the other 
to do my intimate and real duties. . . . But Doctor 
Wigan does not go into these niceties of this subject, and 
I failed. It was then that, on my wife's suggestion, I 
resolved to look out for a Double. 

I was at first singularly successful. We happened to be 
recreating at Stafford Springs that summer. We rode 
out one day, for one of the relaxations of that watering 
place, to the great Monson Poorhouse. We were passing 
through one of the large halls, when my destiny was ful- 
filled! 

He was not shaven. He had on no spectacles. He 
was dressed in a green baize roundabout and faded blue 
overalls, worn sadly at the knee. But I saw at once that 
he was of my height — five feet four and a half. He had 
black hair, worn off by his hat. So have and have not I. 
He stooped in walking. So do I. His hands were large, 
and mine. And — choicest gift of Fate in all — he had, not 
"a strawberry-mark on his left arm," but a cut from a 
juvenile brickbat over his right eye, slightly affecting the 
play of that eyebrow. Reader, so have I ! My fate was 
sealed ! 

A word with Mr. Holly, one of the inspectors, settled 
the whole thing. It proved that this Dennis Shea was a 
harmless, amiable fellow, of the class known as shiftless, 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 209 

who had sealed his fate by marrying a dumb wife, who was 
at that moment ironing in the laundry. Before I left 
Stafford I had hired both for five years. We had applied 
to Judge Pynchon, then the probate Judge at Springfield, 
to change the name of Dennis Shea to Frederic Ingham. 
We had explained to the Judge, what was the precise truth, 
that an eccentric gentleman wished to adopt Dennis, 
under this new name, into his family. It never occurred 
to him that Dennis might be more than fourteen years old. 
And thus, to shorten this preface, when we returned at 
night to my parsonage at Naguadavick, there entered 
Mrs. Ingham, her new dumb laundress, myself, who am 
Mr. Frederic Ingharrf, and my double, who was Mr. Fred- 
eric Ingham, by as good right as I. 

Oh, the fun we had the next morning in shaving his 
beard to my pattern, cutting his hair to match mine, and 
teaching him how to wear and how to take off gold-bowed 
spectacles ! Really, they were electroplate, and the glass 
was plain (for the poor fellow's eyes were excellent). Then 
in four successive afternoons I taught him four speeches. 
I had found these would be quite enough for the super- 
numerary-Sepoy line of life, and it was well for me they 
were; for though he was good-natured, he was very shiftless, 
and it was, as our national proverb says, "like pulling 
teeth" to teach him. But at the end of the next week he 
could say, with quite my easy and frisky air: 

1. "Very well, thank you. And you?" This for an 
answer to casual salutations. 

2. "I am very glad you Hked it." 

3. "There has been so much said, and, on the whole, 
so well said, that I will not occupy the time." 

4. "I agree, in general, with my friend the other side of 
the room." 

At first I had a feeHng that I was going to be at great 
cost for clothing him. But it proved, of course, at once, 
that, whenever he was out, I should be at home. And I 
went, during the bright period of his success, to so few of 
those awful pageants which require a black dress coat and 
what the ungodly call, after Mr. Dickens, a white choker, 



210 American Literature 

that in the happy retreat of my own dressing-gowns and 
jackets my days went by as happily and cheaply as those 
of another Thalaba. And Polly declares there never was a 
year when the tailoring cost so Httle. He Hved (Dennis 
not Thalaba) in his wife's room over the kitchen. He had 
orders never to show himself at that window. When he 
appeared in the front of the house, I retired to my sanctis- 
simum and my dressing-gown. In short, the Dutchman 
and his wife, in the old weather-box, had not less to do with 
each other than he and I. He made the furnace fire and 
split the wood before dayhght; then he went to sleep 
again, and slept late; then came for orders, with a red silk 
bandanna tied round his head, with his overalls on, and his 
dress coat and spectacles off. If we happened to be inter- 
rupted, no one guessed that he was Frederic Ingham as 
well as I ; and in the neighborhood there grew up an impres- 
sion that the minister's Irishman worked daytimes in the 
factory village at New Coventry. After I had given him 
his orders, I never saw him till the next day. 

I launched liim by sending him to a meeting of the 
Enlightenment Board. The EnKghtenment Board con- 
sists of seventy-four members, of whom sixty-seven are 
necessary to form a quorum. ... At this particular time 
we had had four successive meetings, averaging four hours 
each — wholly occupied in whipping in a quorum. At 
the first only eleven men were present; at the next, by 
force of three circulars, twenty-seven; at the third, thanks 
to two days' canvassing by Auchmuty and myself, begging 
men to come, we had sixty. Half the others were in Eu- 
rope. But without a quorum we could do nothing. All 
the rest of us waited grimly for four hours and adjourned 
without any action. At the fourth meeting we had flagged, 
and only got fifty-nine together. 

But on the first appearance of my double — whom I sent 
on this fatal Monday to the fifth meeting — he was the 
sixty-seventh man who entered the room. He was greeted 
with a storm of applause ! The poor fellow had missed his 
way — read the street signs ill through his spectacles (very 
ill, in fact, without them) and had not dared to inquire. 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 211 

He entered the room — finding the president and secretary 
holding to their chairs two judges of the Supreme Court, 
who were also members ex-officio, and were begging leave 
to go away. On his entrance all was changed. Presto, 
the by-laws were suspended, and the Western property 
was given away. Nobody stopped to converse with him. 
He voted, as I had charged him to do, in every instance 
with the minority. I won new laurels as a man of sense, 
though a Httle unpunctual^ — and Dennis, alias Ingham, 
returned to the parsonage, astonished to see with how 
little wisdom the world is governed. He cut a few of my 
parishioners in the street; but he had his glasses ofif, and 
I am known to be near-sighted. Eventually he recognized 
them more readily than I. . . . 

After this he went to several Commencements for me, 
and ate the dinners provided; he sat through three of our 
Quarterly Conventions for me — always voting judiciously, 
by the simple rule mentioned above, of siding with the 
minority. And I, meanwhile, who had been losing caste 
among my friends, as holding myself aloof from the asso- 
ciation of the body, began to rise in everybody's favor. 
"Ingham's a good fellow— always on hand;" "never talks 
much, but does the right thing at the right time;" "is not 
as unpunctual as he used to be — he comes early, and sits 
through to the end." "He has got over his old talkative 
habit, too. I spoke to a friend of his about it once; and I 
think Ingham took it kindly," etc., etc. 

. . . Polly is more rash than I am, as the reader has ob- 
served in the outset of this memoir. She risked Dennis 
one night under the eyes of her own sex. Governor Gorges 
had always been very kind to us, and, when he gave his 
great annual party to the town, asked us. I confess I 
hated to go. I was deep in the new volume of Pfeiffer's 
"Mystics," which HaHburton had just sent me from Bos- 
ton. "But how rude," said Polly, "not to return the 
Governor's civiHty and Mrs. Gorges's, when they will be 
sure to ask why you are away !" Still I demurred, and at 
last she, with the wit of Eve and of Semiramis conjoined, 
let me off by saying that, if I would go in with her and 



212 American Literature 

sustain the initial conversations with the Governor and the 
ladies staying there, she would risk Dennis for the rest of 
the evening. And that was just what we did. She took 
Dennis in training all that afternoon, instructed him in 
fashionable conversation, cautioned him against the temp- 
tations of the supper table — and at nine in the evening 
he drove us all down in the carryall. I made the grand 
star entree with Polly and the pretty Walton girls, who 
were staying with us. We had put Dennis into a great 
rough top-coat, without his glasses, and the girls never 
dreamed in the darkness, of looking at him. He sat in the 
carriage, at the door, while we entered. I did the agree- 
able to Mrs. Gorges, was introduced to her niece, Miss 
Fernanda; I complimented Judge Jeffries on his decision 
in the great case of D'Aulnay vs. Laconia Mining Company; 
I stepped into the dressing-room for a moment, stepped out 
for another, walked home after a nod with Dennis and 
tying the horse to a pump ; and while I walked home, Mr. 
Frederic Ingham, my double, stepped in through the library 
into the Gorges's grand salon. 

Oh ! Polly died of laughing as she told me of it at mid- 
night ! And even here, where I have to teach my hands 
to hew the beech for stakes to fence our cave, she dies of 
laughing as she recalls it — and says that single occasion 
was worth all we have paid for it. Gallant Eve that she 
is ! She joined Dennis at the library door, and in an in- 
stant presented him to Doctor Ochterlony, from Baltimore, 
who was on a visit in town, and was. talking with her as 
Dennis came in. "Mr. Ingham would like to hear what 
you were telling us about your success among the German 
population." And Dennis bowed and said, in spite of a 
scowl from Polly, " I'm very glad you liked it." But Doctor 
Ochterlony did not observe, and plunged into the tide of 
explanation; Dennis Hstened Hke a prime minister, and 
bowing like a mandarin, which is, I suppose, the same thing. 
... So was it that before Doctor Ochterlony came to 
the "success," or near it, Governor Gorges came to Dennis 
and asked him to hand Mrs. Jeffries down to supper, a 
request which he heard with great joy. 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After %V6 

Polly was skipping round the room, I guess, gay as a 
lark. Auchmuty came to her "in pity for poor Ingham," 
who was so bored by the stupid pundit — and Auchmuty 
could not understand why I stood it so long. But when 
Dennis took Mrs. Jeffries down, Polly could not resist 
standing near them. He was a Httle flustered, till the 
sight of the eatables and drinkables gave him the same 
Mercian courage which it gave Diggory. A Httle excited 
then, he attempted one or two of his speeches to the Judge's 
lady. But Httle he knew how hard it was to get in even a 
promplii there edgewise. "Very well, I thank you," said 
he, after the eating elements were adjusted; "and you?" 
And then did not he have to hear about the mumps, and 
the measles, and arnica, and beUadonna, and camomile 
flower, and dodecatheon, till she changed oysters for salad; 
and then about the old practice and the new, and what her 
sister said, and what her sister's friend said, and what the 
physician to her sister's friend said, and then what was said 
by the brother of the sister of the physician of the friend 
of her sister, exactly as if it had been in Ollendorff ? There 
was a moment's pause, as she decHned champagne. "I 
am very glad^ou Hke it," said Dennis, which he never 
should have said but to one who compHmented a sermon. 
"Oh ! you are so sharp, Mr. Ingham ! No ! I never drink 
any wine at all — except sometimes in summer a Httle cur- 
rant shrub — from our own currants, you know. My own 
mother — that is, I call her my own mother, because, you 
know, I do not remember," etc., etc., etc.; till they came to 
the candied orange at the end of the feast, when Dennis, 
rather confused, thought he must say something, and tried 
No. 4 — "I agree, in general, with my friend the other side 
of the room" — which he never should have said but at a 
pubHc meeting. But Mrs. Jeffries, who never Hstens ex- 
cepting to understand, caught him up instantly with, 
"Well, I'm sure my husband returns the compHment; he 
always agrees with you — though we do worship with the 
Methodists; but you know, Mr. Ingham," etc., etc., etc., 
tin they move upstairs ; and as Dennis led her through the 
haU, he was scarcely understood by any but Polly, as he 



!^14 American Literature 

said, ''There has been so much said, and, on the whole, so 
well said, that I will not occupy the time." 

His great resource the rest of the evening was standing 
in the library, carrying on animated conversations with 
one and another in much the same way. . . . 

But I sec I loiter on my story, which is rushing to the 
plunge. . . . 

It was thus it happened. There is an excellent fellow 
— once a minister — I will call him Isaacs — who deserves 
well of the world till he dies, and after, because he once, 
in a real exigency, did the right thing, in the right way, at 
the right time, as no other man could do it. . . . It came 
time for the annual county meeting . . . to be held at Na- 
guadavick. Isaacs came round, good fellow ! to arrange for 
it — got the town-hall, got the Governor to preside (the saint ! 
He ought to have triplet doubles provided him by law) , and 
then came to get me to speak. ''No," I said, "I would not 
speak if ten Governors presided. I do not believe in the 
enterprise. If I spoke, it should be to say children should 
take hold of the prongs of the forks and the blades of the 
knives. I would subscribe ten dollars, but I would not 
speak a mill." So poor Isaacs went his way sadly, to coax 
Auchmuty to speak, and Delafield. I went out. Not long 
after, he came back and told Polly that they promised to 
speak, the Governor would speak, and he himself would 
close with the quarterly report and some interesting anec- 
dotes regarding ^liss Biffin's way of handling her knife 
and Mr. Nelhs's way of footing his fork. "Now, if Mr. 
Ingham will only come and sit on the platform, he need not 
say one word; but it will show well in the paper — it will 
show that the Sandemanians take as much interest in the 
movement as the Armenians or the Mesopotamians, and 
will be a great favor to me." Polly, good soul ! was tempted, 
and she promised. She knew Mrs. Isaacs was starving, 
and the babies — she knew Dennis was at home — and 
she promised ! Night came, and I returned. I heard her 
story. I was sorry. I doubted. But Polly had prom- 
ised to beg me, and I dared all ! I told Dennis to hold his 
peace, under all circumstances, and sent him down. 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 21.5 

It was not half an hour more before he returned wild with 
excitement— in a perfect Irish fury — which it was long before 
I understood. But I knew at once that he had undone me ! 

What happened was this. The audience got together, 
attracted by Governor Gorges's name. There were a 
thousand people. Poor Gorges was late from Augusta. 
They became impatient. He came in direct from the 
train at last, really ignorant of the object of the meeting. 
He opened it in the fewest possible words, and said other 
gentlemen were present who would entertain them better 
than he. 

The audience were disappointed, but waited. The Gov- 
ernor, prompted by Isaacs, said, "The Honorable Mr. 
Delafield will address you." Delafield had forgotten the 
knives and forks, and was playing the Ruy Lopez opening 
at the chess club. 

"The Reverend Mr. Auchmuty will address you." Auch- 
muty had promised to speak late, and was at the school 
committee. 

"I see Doctor Steams in the hall; perhaps he will say a 
word." Doctor Steams said he had come to listen and 
not to speak. 

The Govemor and Isaacs whispered. The Governor 
looked at Dennis, who was resplendent on the platform; 
but Isaacs, to give him his due, shook his head. But the 
look was enough. 

A miserable lad, ill-bred, who had once been in Boston, 
thought it would sound well to call for me, and peeped 
out, "Ingham!" A few more wretches cried "Ingham!" 
"Ingham!" Still Isaacs was firm; but the Govemor, 
anxious, indeed, to prevent a row, knew I would say some- 
thing, and said: "Our friend, Mr. Ingham, is always pre- 
pared; and, though we had not relied upon him, he will 
say a word perhaps." 

Applause followed, which tumed Dennis's head. He 
rose, fluttered, and tried No. 3: "There has been so much 
said, and, on the whole, so well said, that I will not longer 
occupy the time!" and sat down, looking for his hat; for 
things seemed squally. 



216 American Literature 

But the people cried "Go on! Go on!" and some ap- 
plauded. Dennis, still confused, but flattered by the 
applause, to which neither he nor I are used, rose again, 
and this time tried No. 2: "I am very glad you hked it !" 
in a sonorous, clear deHvery. My best friends stared. All 
the people who did not know me personally yelled with de- 
Hght at the aspect of the evening; the Governor was beside 
himself, and poor Isaacs thought he was undone ! Alas, it 
was I ! A boy in the gallery cried in a loud tone, "It's all 
an infernal humbug," just as Dennis, waving his hand, 
commanded silence, and tried No. 4: "I agree, in general, 
with my friend the other side of the room." The Governor 
doubted his senses and crossed to stop him — not in time, 
however. The same gallery boy shouted, "How's your 
mother?" and Dennis, now completely lost, tried, as his 
last shot. No. I, vainly: "Very well, thank you; and you?" 

I think I must have been undone already. But Dennis, 
like another Lockhard, chose "to make sicker." 

The audience rose in a whirl of amazement, rage and 
sorrow. Some other impertinence, aimed at Dennis, broke 
all restraint, and, in pure Irish, he delivered himself an 
address to the gallery, inviting any person who wished to 
fight to come down and do so, stating that they were all 
dogs and cowards and the sons of dogs and cowards, that 
he would take any five of them single-handed. "Shure, 
I have said all his Riverence and the Misthress bade me 
say," cried he in defiance; and, seizing the Governor's 
cane from his hand, brandished it, quarter-staflf fashion, 
above his head. He was, indeed, got from the hall only 
with the greatest difficulty by the Governor, the City 
Marshal, who had been called in, and the Superintendent 
of my Sunday-school. 

The universal impression, of course, was that the Rev- 
erend Frederic Ingham had lost all command of himself 
in some of those haunts of intoxication which for fifteen 
years I had been laboring to destroy. Till this moment, 
indeed, that is the impression in Naguadavick. This num- 
ber of the Atlantic will reUeve from it a hundred friends of 
mine who have been sadly wounded by that notion now 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 217 

for years; but I shall not be likely ever to show my head 
there again. 

No. My double has undone me. 

We left town at seven the next morning. I came to No. 
9, in the Third Range, and settled on the Minister's Lot. 
In the new towns in Maine, the first settled minister has a 
gift of a hundred acres of land. I am the first settled min- 
ister in No. 9. My wife and little Paulina are my parish. 
We raise corn enough to Hve on in summer. We kill bear's 
meat enough to carbonize it in winter. I work on steadily 
on my "Traces of Sandemanianism in the Sixth and Seventh 
Centuries," which I hope to persuade Phillips, Sampson & 
Company to publish next year. We are very happy, but 
the world thinks we are undone. — //, yes, and perhaps. 

V 

9. Lewis Wallace (1827-1905), usually called "Lew" Wal- 
lace, was born in Indiana. He served with distinction in the 
Civil War and became a general of volunteers. His most 
widely read story is Ben Hur, a Tale of the Christ, which has 
been successfully dramatized. He also wrote A Prince of 
India. (For readings see Bibliography, page 234,) 

10. Frank R. Stockton (1834-1902) was a Philadelphia 
writer who, says Professor Simonds, "is unique among Amer- 
ican story-writers for the -whimsical mingling of the serious and 
the humorous in fiction.^ He made his place in the literary 
world by the pubUcation of Rudder Grange in 1879. Ten years 
later he wrote the short storjS, The Lady or the Tiger? with which 
his name has ever since been *agspciated. 

The Lady or the Tiger? 

In the very olden tilne, there lived a semi-barbaric king, 
whose ideas, though somewhat polished and sharpened 
by the progressiveness of distant Latin neighbors, were 
still large, florid, and untrammelled, as became the half 
of him which was barbaric. 

Among the borrowed notions by which his barbarism 
had become semified was that of the public arena, in which, 
by exhibitions of manly and beastly valor, the minds of his 
subjects were refined and cultured. 



218 American Literature 

But even here the exuberant and barbaric fancy asserted 
itself. The arena of the king was built, not to give the 
people an opportunity of hearing the rhapsodies of dying 
gladiators, nor to enable them to view the inevitable con- 
clusion of a conflict between rehgious opinions and hungry 
jaws, but for purposes far better adapted to widen and de- 
velop the mental energies of the people. This vast amphi- 
theatre, with its encirchng galleries, its mysterious vaults, 
and its unseen passages, was an agent of poetic justice, in 
which crime was punished, or virtue rewarded, by the 
decrees of an impartial and incorruptible chance. 

When a subject was accused of a crime of sufficient im- 
portance to interest the king. pubHc notice was given that 
on an appointed day the fate of the accused person would 
be decided in the king's arena, — a structure which well 
deserved its name; for, although its form and plan were 
borrowed from afar, its purpose emanated solely from 
the brain of this man, who, every barleycorn a king, knew 
no tradition to which he owed more allegiance than pleased 
his fancy, and who ingrafted on every adopted form of 
human thought and action the rich growth of his barbaric 
ideahsm. 

When all the people had assembled in the galleries, and 
the king, surrounded by his court, sat high up on his throne 
of royal state on one side of the arena, he gave a signal, a 
door beneath him opened, and the accused subject stepped 
out into the amphitheatre. Directly opposite him, on the 
other side of the enclosed space, were two doors, exactly 
aUke and side by side. It was the duty and the privilege 
of the person on trial, to walk directly to these doors and 
open one of them. He could open either door he pleased: 
he was subject to no guidance or influence but that of 
the aforementioned impartial and incorruptible chance. If 
he opened the one, there came out of it a hungry tiger, 
the fiercest and most cruel that could be procured, which 
immediately sprang upon him. and tore him to pieces, as 
a punishment for his guilt. The moment that the case of 
the criminal was thus decided, doleful iron bells were 
clanged, great wails went up from the hired mourners 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 219 

posted on the outer rim of the arena, and the vast audience, 
with bowed heads and downcast hearts, wended slowly 
their homeward way, mourning greatly that one so young 
and fair, or so old and respected, should have merited so 
dire a fate. 

But, if the accused person opened the other door there 
came forth from it a lady, the most suitable to his years 
and station that his majesty could select among his fair 
subjects; and to this lady he was immediately married, as 
a reward of his innocence. It mattered not that he might 
already possess a wdfe and family, or that his afifections 
might be engaged upon an object of his own selection: the 
king allowed no such subordinate arrangements to inter- 
fere with his great scheme of retribution and reward. The 
exercises, as in the other instance, took place immediately, 
and in the arena. Another door opened beneath the king, 
and a priest, followed by a band of choristers, and dancing 
maidens blowing joyous airs on golden horns and treading 
an epithalamic measure, advanced to w'here the pair stood, 
side by side; and the wedding was promptly and cheerily 
solemnized. Then the gay brass bells rang forth their 
merry peals, the people shouted glad hurrahs, and the 
innocent man, preceded by children strewing flowers on 
his path, led his bride to his home. 

This was the king's semi-barbaric method of administer- 
ing justice. Its perfect fairness is ob\dous. The criminal 
could not know out of which door would come the lady: 
he opened either he pleased, without ha\dng the slightest 
idea whether, in the next instant, he was to be devoured 
or married. On some occasions the tiger came out of one 
door, and on some out of the other. The decisions of 
this tribunal were not only fair, they were positively de- 
terminate: the accused person was instantly punished if 
he found himself guilty; and, if innocent, he w^as rewarded 
on the spot, whether he hked it or not. There was no 
escape from the judgments of the king's arena. . . . 

This semi-barbaric king had a daughter as blooming as 
his most florid fancies, and with a soul as fervent and im- 
perious as his own. As is usual in such cases, she was 



220 American Literature 

the apple of his eye, and was loved by him above all hu- 
manity. Among his courtiers was a young man of that 
fineness of blood and lowness of station common to the 
conventional heroes of romance who love royal maidens. 
This royal maiden was well satisfied with her lover, for he 
was handsome and brave to a degree unsurpassed in all 
this kingdom; and she loved him with an ardor that had 
enough of barbarism in it to make it exceedingly warm and 
strong. This love affair moved on happily for many months, 
until one day the king happened to discover its existence. 
He did not hesitate nor waver in regard to his duty in the 
premises. The youth was immediately cast into prison, 
and a day was appointed for his trial in the king's arena. 
This, of course, was an especially important occasion; 
and his majesty, as well as all the people, was greatly 
interested in the workings and development of this trial. 
Never before had such a case occurred; never before had 
a subject dared to love the daughter of a king. In after- 
years such things became commonplace enough; but then 
they were, in no slight degree, novel and startling. 

The tiger-cages of the kingdom were searched for the 
most savage and relentless beasts, from which the fiercest 
monster might be selected for the arena; and the ranks 
of maiden youth and beauty throughout the land were 
carefully surveyed by competent judges, in order that the 
young man might have a fitting bride in case fate did not 
determine for him a different destiny. Of course, every- 
body knew that the deed with which the accused was 
charged had been done. He had loved the princess, and 
neither he, she, nor any one else thought of denying the 
fact; but the king would not think of allowing any fact of 
this kind to interfere with the workings of the tribunal, in 
which he took such great delight and satisfaction. No 
matter how the affair turned out, the youth would be dis- 
posed of; and the king would take an aesthetic pleasure in 
watching the course of events, which would determine 
whether or not the young man had done wrong in allowing 
himself to love the princess. 

The appointed day arrived. From far and near the peo- 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 221 

pie gathered, and thronged the great galleries of the arena; 
and crowds, unable to gain admittance, massed themselves 
against its outside walls. The king and his court were 
in their places, opposite the twin doors, — those fateful 
portals, so terrible in their similarity. 

All was ready. The signal was given. A door beneath 
the royal party opened, and the lover of the princess walked 
into the arena. Tall, beautiful, fair, his appearance was 
greeted with a low hum of admiration and anxiety. Half 
the audience had not known so grand a youth had lived 
among them. No wonder the princess loved him ! What 
a terrible thing for him to be there ! 

As the youth advanced into the arena he turned, as the 
custom was, to bow to the king: but he did not think at all 
of that royal personage; his eyes were fixed upon the prin- 
cess, who sat to the right of her father. Had it not been 
for the moiety of barbarism in her nature, it is probable 
that lady would not have been there; but her intense and 
fervid soul would not allow her to be absent on an occasion 
in which she was so terribly interested. From the mo- 
ment that the decree had gone forth, that her lover should 
decide his fate in the king's arena, she had thought of 
nothing, night or day, but this great event and the various 
subjects connected with it. Possessed of more power, in- 
fluence, and force of character than any one who had ever 
before been interested in such a case, she had done what no 
other person had done, — she had possessed herself of the 
secret of the doors. She knew in which of the two rooms 
that lay behind those doors, stood the cage of the tiger, 
with its open front, and in which waited the lady. Through 
these thick doors, heavily curtained with skins on the inside, 
it was impossible that any noise or suggestion should come 
from within to the person who should approach to raise 
the latch of one of them; but gold, and the power of a 
woman's will, had brought the secret to the princess. 

And not only did she know in which room stood the 
lady ready to emerge, all blushing and radiant, should her 
door be opened, but she knew who the lady was. It was 
one of the fairest and loveHest of the damsels of the court 



222 American Literature 

who had been selected as the reward of the accused youth, 
should he be proved innocent of the crime of aspiring to 
one so far above him; and the princess hated her. . . . 

When her lover turned and looked at her, and his eye 
met hers as she sat there paler and whiter than any one 
in the vast ocean of anxious faces about her, he saw, by 
that power of quick perception which is given to those 
whose souls are one, that she knew behind which door 
crouched the tiger, and behind which stood the lady. He 
had expected her to know it. He understood her nature, 
and his soul was assured that she would never rest until she 
had made plain to herself this thing, hidden to all other 
lookers-on, even to the king. The only hope for the youth 
in which there was any element of certainty was based 
upon the success of the princess in discovering this mystery; 
and the moment he looked upon her, he saw she had suc- 
ceeded, as in his soul he knew she would succeed. 

Then it was that his quick and anxious glance asked 
the question: "Which?" It was as plain to her as if he 
shouted it from where he stood. There was not an instant 
to be lost. The question was asked in a flash; it must 
be answered in another. 

Her right arm lay on the cushioned parapet before her. 
She raised her hand, and made a slight, quick movement 
toward the right. No one but her lover saw her. Every 
eye but his was fixed on the man in the arena. 

He turned, and with a firm and rapid step he walked 
across the empty space. Every heart stopped beating, 
every breath was held, every eye was fixed immovably 
upon that man. Without the slightest hesitation, he went 
to the door on the right, and opened it. 

Now, the point of the story is this: Did the tiger come out 
of that door or did the lady ? 

The more we reflect upon this question, the harder it is 
to answer. It involves a study of the human heart which 
leads us through devious mazes of passion, out of which 
it is difficult to find our way. Think of it, fair reader, not 
as if the decision of the question depended upon yourself, 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 223 

but upon that hot-blooded, semi-barbaric princess, her 
soul at a white heat beneath the combined fires of despair 
and jealousy. She had lost him, but who should have him ? 

How often, in her waking hours and in her dreams, had 
she started in wild horror, and covered her face with her 
hands as she thought of her lover opening the door on the 
other side of which waited the cruel fangs of the tiger ! 

But how much oftener had she seen him at the other 
door ! How in her grievous reveries had she gnashed her 
teeth, and torn her hair, when she saw his start of raptur- 
ous delight as he opened the door of the lady ! How her 
soul had burned in agony when she had seen him rush to 
meet that woman, with her flushing cheek and sparkling 
eye of triumph; when she had seen him lead her forth, his 
whole frame kindled with the Joy of recovered life; when 
she had heard the glad shouts from the multitude, and the 
wild ringing of the happy bells; when she had seen the 
priest, with his joyous followers, advance to the couple, 
and make them man and wife before her very eyes; and 
when she had seen them walk away together upon their 
path of flowers, followed by the tremendous shouts of the 
hilarious multitudes, in which her one despairing shriek 
was lost and drowned ! 

Would it not be better for him to die at once, and go to 
wait for her in the blessed regions of semi-barbaric futurity ? 

And yet, that awful tiger, those shrieks, that blood ! 

Her decision had been indicated in an instant, but it 
had been made after days and nights of anguished dehb- 
eration. She had known she would be asked, she had 
decided what she would answer, and, without the slightest 
hesitation, she had moved her hand to the right. 

The question of her decision is one not to be lightly con- 
sidered, and it is not for me to presume to set myself up 
as the one person able to answer it. And so I leave it 
with all of you: Which came out of the opened door, — the 
lady, or the tiger? 

, II. Bret Harte (1839-1902) was born in New York but 
went to California when very young. There he identified him- 



224 American Literature 

self with the life of the " forty-niners," and from his rich ex- 
perience he gave us stories of pioneer life in the West which, 
perhaps, are the best of their kind in our literature. (Consult 
the Bibliography, page 234, for readings from Bret Harte.) 

12. Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836-1907), a member of the 
New York group of writers, was a novelist and a writer of 
exquisitely finished verse. The Story of a Bad Boy, published 
in 1870, made his name famous. He was editor of the Atlantic 
Monthly from 1881 to 1890. (For readings see Bibliography, 
page 234.) 

13. Samuel L. Clemens (183 5-1 9 10), universally known 
as " Mark Twain," was born in Missouri and spent his early 
days in the region of the Mississippi River, where, after his 
brief schooling, he became a pilot on the river boats. He 
gives us a picture of this life in Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry 
Finn. Later he travelled extensively in Europe. The result 
of these travels was The Innocents Abroad. He easily ranks 
as the chief of American humorists. " Tom Sawyer and Huck- 
leberry Finn are prose epics of American life," says Professor 
William Lyon Phelps. 

The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County 
(From The Jumping Frog, and Other Sketches) 

... I found Simon Wheeler dozing comfortably by 
the bar-room stove of the dilapidated tavern in the decayed 
mining camp of Angel's, and I noticed that he was fat and 
bald-headed, and had an expression of winning gentleness 
and simplicity upon his tranquil countenance. He roused 
up and gave me good-day. I told him a friend of mine 
had commissioned me to make some inquiries about a 
cherished companion of his boyhood, named Leonidas W. 
Smiley — Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley — a young minister of 
the gospel, who, he had heard, was at one time a resident 
of Angel's Camp. I added that, if Mr. Wheeler could tell 
me anything about this Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, I would 
feel under many obligations to him. 

Simon WTieeler backed me into a corner and blockaded 
me there with his chair, and then sat down and reeled off 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 225 

the monotonous narrative which follows this paragraph. 
He never smiled, he never frowned, he never changed his 
voice from the gentle-flowing key to which he tuned his 
initial sentence, he never betrayed the shghtest suspicion 
of enthusiasm; but all through the interminable narrative 
there ran a vein of impressive earnestness and sincerity 
which showed me plainly that, so far from his imagining 
that there was anything ridiculous or funny about his 
story, he regarded it as a really important matter, and 
admired its two heroes as men of transcendent genius in 
finesse. I let him go on in his own way, and never inter- 
rupted him once. 

" Rev. ^Xeonidas W. H'm, Reverend Le — well, there 
was a feller here once by the name of Jim Smiley, in the 
winter of '49, or maybe it was the spring of '50 — I don't 
recollect exactly, somehow, though what makes me think 
it was one or the other, is because I remember the big 
flume warn't finished when he first come to the camp; 
but anyway, he was the curiousest man about, always 
betting on anything that turned up you ever see, if he 
could get anybody to bet on the other side; and if he 
couldn't he'd change sides. Any way that suited the other 
side would suit him — any way, just so's he got a bet, ke 
was satisfied. But still he was lucky, uncommon lucky; 
he 'most always come out winner. He was always ready, 
and laying for a chance; there couldn't be no soUt'ry thing 
mentioned but that feller'd offer to bet on it, and take 
ary side you please, as I was just telling you. If there was 
a horse-race, you'd find him flush or you'd find him busted 
at the end of it; if there was a dog-fight, he'd bet on it; 
if there was a cat-fight, he'd bet on it; if there was a chicken- 
fight, he'd bet on it; why, if there was two birds setting 
on the fence, he would bet you which one would fly first; 
or if there was a camp-meeting, he would be there reg'lar 
to bet on Parson Walker, which he judged to be the best 
exhorter about here; and so he was, too, and a good man. 
If he even see a straddle-bug start to go anywheres, he 
would bet you how long it would take him to get to — to 
wherever he was going to; and if you took him up he 



226 American Literature 

would foller that straddle-bug to Mexico, but what he 
would find out where he was bound for, and how long 
he was on the road. Lots of the boys here has seen that 
Smiley, and can tell you about him. Why, it never made 
no difference to Am— he'd bet any thing — the dangdest 
feller. Parson Walker's wife laid very sick once for a 
good while, and it seemed as if they warn't going to save 
her; but one morning he come in, and Smiley up and asked 
him how she was, and he said she was consid'able better — 
thank the Lord for his inf 'nit mercy ! — and coming on so 
smart that, with the blessing of Prov'dence, she'd get well 
yet; and Smiley, before he thought, says, 'Well, I'll resk 
two-and-a-half she don't anyway.' . . . 

"Well, this-yer Smiley had rat-tarriers, and chicken- 
cocks, and tom-cats and all them kind of things, till you 
couldn't rest, and you couldn't fetch nothing for him to 
bet on but he'd match you. He ketched a frog one day, 
and took him home, and said he cal'lated to educate him; 
and so he never done nothing for three months but set in 
his back yard and learn that frog to jump. And you bet 
you he did learn him, too. He'd give him a little punch 
behind, and the next minute you'd see that frog whirling 
in the air like a doughnut — see him turn one summerset, 
or maybe a couple, if he got a good start, and come down 
flat-footed and all right, like a cat. He got him up so in 
the matter of ketching flies and kep' him in practice so 
constant, that he'd nail a fly every time as fur as he could 
see him. Smiley said all a frog wanted was education 
and he could do 'most anything — and I beHeve him. 
Why, I've seen him set Dan'l Webster down here on this 
floor — Dan'l Webster was the name of the frog — and sing 
out, 'Flies, Dan'l, flies!' and quicker'n you could wink 
he'd spring straight up and snake a fly off'n the counter 
there, and flop down on the floor ag'in as solid as a gob of 
mud, and fall to scratching the side of his head with his 
hind foot as indifferent as if he hadn't no idea he'd been 
doin' any more'n any frog might do. You never see a 
frog so modest and straightfor'ard as he was, for all he was 
so gifted. And when it come to fair and square jumping 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 227 

on a dead level, he could get over more ground at one 
straddle than any animal of his breed you ever see. Jump- 
ing on a dead level was his strong suit, you understand; 
and when it come to that, Smiley would ante up money 
on him as long as he had a red. Smiley was monstrous 
proud of his frog, and well he might be for fellers that had 
travelled and been everywheres, all said he laid over any 
frog that ever they see. 

"Well, Smiley kep' the beast in a Httle lattice box, and 
he used to fetch him down town sometimes and lay for a 
bet. One day a feller — a stranger in the camp, he was 
— come acrost him with his box, and says : 

"'What might it be that you've got in the box?' 

"And Smiley says, sorter indifferent-like, 'It might be 
a parrot, or it might be a canary, maybe, but it ain't — 
it's only just a frog. ' 

"And the feller took it, and looked at it careful, and 
turned it round this way and that, and says, 'H'm — so 'tis. 
Well, what's he good for ? ' 

"'Well,' Smiley says, easy and careless, 'he's good 
enough for one thing, I should judge — he can outjump any 
frog in Calaveras County.' 

"The feller took the box again, and took another long, 
particular look, and give it back to Smiley, and says, very 
deliberate, 'Well,' he says, 'I don't see no p'ints about that 
frog that's any better 'n any other frog.' 

"'Maybe you don't,' Smiley says. 'Maybe you under- 
stand frogs, and maybe you don't understand 'em; maybe 
you've had experience, and maybe you ain't only a ama- 
ture, as it were. Anyways, I've got my opinion, and I'll 
resk forty dollars that he can outjump any frog in Calaveras 
County.' 

"And the feller studied a minute, and then says, kinder 
sad-like, 'Well, I'm only a stranger here, and I ain't got 
no frog; but if I had a frog, I'd bet you.' 

"And then Smiley says, 'That's all right — that's all 
right — if you'll hold my box a minute, I'll go and get you 
a frog.' And so the feller took the box, and put up his 
forty dollars along with Smiley's, and set down to wait. 



228 American Literature 

" So he set there a good while, thinking and thinking to 
hisself, and then he got the frog out and prized his mouth 
open, and took a teaspoon and filled him full of quail-shot 
— filled him pretty near up to his chin— and set him on 
the floor. Smiley he went to the swamp and slopped 
around in the mud for a long time, and finally he ketched 
a frog, and fetched him in, and give him to this feller, and 
says: 

"'Now, if you're ready, set him alongside of Dan'l, 
with his fore paws just even with Dan'l's, and I'll give the 
word.' Then he says, 'One — two — three — gUT and him 
and the feller touched up the frogs from behind, and the 
new frog hopped off hvely, but Dan'l gave a heave, and 
hysted up his shoulders — so — like a Frenchman, but it 
warn't no use — he couldn't budge; he was planted as 
solid as a church, and he couldn't no more stir than if he 
was anchored out. Smiley was a good deal surprised, and 
he was disgusted too, but he didn't have no idea what the 
matter was, of course. 

"The feller took the money and started away; and when 
he was going out at the door, he sorter jerked his thumb 
over his shoulder — so — at Dan'l and says again, very de- 
Uberate, 'Well,' he says, '/ don't see no p'ints about that 
frog that's any better'n any other frog,' 

"Smiley he stood scratching his head and looking down 
at Dan'l a long time, and at last he says, 'I do wonder 
what in the nation that frog throw'd off for — I wonder if 
there ain't something the matter with him — he 'pears to 
look mighty baggy, somehow.' And he ketched Dan'l 
by the nap of the neck, and hefted him, and says, 'Why, 
blame my cats if he don't weigh five pound ! ' and turned 
him upside down, and he belched out a double handful of 
shot. And then he see how it was, and he was the maddest 
man — he set the frog down and took out after the feller, 
but he never ketched him. And " 



But, by your leave, I did not think that a continuation 
of the history of the enterprising vagabond Jim Smiley 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 229 

would be likely to afford me much information concerning 
the R&v. Leonidas W. Smiley, and so I started away. 



14. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps "Ward (1844-1911) was a 
Boston woman who became known in the literary world through 
her mystical story The Gates Ajar, published in 1868. She 
wrote many other stories both long and short. Though she 
lived on into the twentieth century her work belongs to the 
older generation. 

The Day of Judgment 
(From TroUy's Wedding Tour) 

I am fourteen years old and Jill is twelve and a quarter. 
Jill is my brother. That isn't his name, you know; his 
name is Timothy and mine is George Zacharias; but 
they've always called us Jack and Jill. . , . 

Well, Jill and I had an invitation to Aunt John's this 
summer, and that was how we happened to be there. . . . 

I'd rather go to Aunt John's than any where else in this 
world. When I was a little fellow I used to- think I'd rather 
go to Aunt John's than to go to Heaven. But I never 
dared to tell. . . . 

She'd invited us to come on the 12th of August. It 
takes all day to get to Aunt John's. She Hves at Little 
River in New Hampshire away up. You have to wait 
at South Lawrence in a poky Uttle depot, . . . and you 
get some played out. At least I don't but Jill does. So 
we bought a paper and Jill sat up and read it. When 
he'd sat a minute and read along: 

"Look here!" said he. 

''Look where?" said I. 

"Why, there's going to be a comet to-night," said Jill. 
^"Who cares?" said I. 

Jill laid down the paper, and crunched a pop-corn all 
up before he answered that. Then said he, "I don't see 
why father didn't tell us. I s'pose he thought we'd be 
frightened, or something. Why, s'posing the world did 
come to an end? That's what this paper says. 'It is 



230 American Literature 

predicted' — where's my place? 0! I see — 'predicted by 
learned men that a comet will come into con — conjunction 
with out plant' — no — 'our planet this night. Whether we 
shall be plunged into a wild vortex of angry space, or 
suffocated with n-o-x — noxious gases, or scorched to a 
helpless crisp, or blasted at once into eternal an-ni-hi '" 

A gust of wind grabbed the paper out of Jill's hand just 
then, and took it out of the window; so I never heard the 
rest. . . . 

"Father isn't a goose," said I. "He didn't think it 
worth mentioning. He isn't going to be afraid of a comet 
at his time of life !" 

So we didn't think any more about the comet till we 
got to Aunt John's. . . . There was company there. . . . 
It wasn't a relation, only an old schoolmate, and her 
name was Miss Togy; so she'd come without an invita- 
tion, and had to have the spare room because she was a 
lady. That was how Jill and I came to be put in the 
Httle chimney bedroom. . . . 

That little chimney bedroom is the funniest place you 
ever slept in. . . . There'd been a chimney once, and it 
ran up by the window, and grandfather had it taken 
away. It was a big, old, oW-fashioned chimney, and it 
left the funniest Httle gouge in the room! So the bed 
went in as nice as could be. We couldn't see much but 
the ceiling when we got to bed. 

"It's pretty dark," said Jill; "I shouldn't wonder if it 
did blow up a little. Wouldn't it scare — Miss — Bogy ! " 

"Togy," said I. 

"Well, T-o— " said Jill; and right in the middle of it 
he went off as sound as a weasel. 

The next thing I can remember is a horrible noise — I 
can't think of but one thing in this world it was like, and 
that isn't in this world so much. I mean the Last Trum- 
pet, with the Angel blowing as he blows in my old Primer. 

But the next thing I remember is hearing Jill sit up in 
bed, — for I couldn't see him, it was so dark, — and his 
piping out the other half of Miss Togy's name just as he 
had left it when he went to sleep : 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 231 

"Gy/ Bo-g3'/ Fo-gy! Soa.-ky! — O," said Jill, com- 
ing to at last, "I thought . . . why, what's up?" 

I was up, but I couldn't tell what else was, for a little 
while. I went to the window. It was as dark as a great 
rat-hole out-of-doors, all but a streak of lightning and an 
awful thunder, as if the world was cracking all to pieces. . . . 

"Come to bed!" shouted Jill, "you'll get struck, and 
then that'll kill me." 

I went back to bed, for I didn't know what else to do. 
We crawled down under the clothes and covered ourselves 
all up. 

"W-ould — you — call Aunt — John?" asked Jill. He was 
'most choked. I came up for air. 

"No," said I, "I don't think I'd call Aunt John." 

I should have Hked to call Aunt John by that time; but 
then I should have felt ashamed. 

"I s'pose she has got her hands full with Miss Croaky, 
anyway," chattered Jill, bobbing up for a breath, and then 
bobbing under again. 

By that time the storm was the worst storm I had ever 
seen in my Hfe — it grew worse and worse. Thunder, 
lightning, and wind ! Wind, Hghtning, and thunder ! Rain 
and roar and awfuhiess ! I don't know how to tell how 
awful it was. . . . 

In the middle of the biggest peal we'd had yet, up jumped 
Jill. "Jack!" said he, "that comet!" I'd never thought 
of the comet till that minute; I felt an ugly feeling and a 
little cold all over. "It is the comet!" said Jill. "It is 
the Day of Judgment, Jack." . . . 

Then it happened. It happened so fast I didn't even 
have time to get my head under the clothes. 

First there was a creak. Then a crash. Then we felt 
a shake as if a giant pushed his shoulder up through the 
floor and shoved us. Then we doubled up. And then 
we began to fall. The floor opened, and we went through. 
I heard the bed-post hit as we went by. . . . Then I felt 
another crash. Then we began to fall again. Then we 
bumped down hard. After that we stopped falling. I 
lay still. My heels were doubled up over my head. I 



232 American Literature 

thought my neck would break. But I never dared to stir. 
I thought I was dead. 

By and by I wondered if Jill were not dead too. So I 
undoubled my neck a little and found some air. It seemed 
to be just as uncomfortable ... to breathe without air 
when you were dead as when you weren't. 

I called out softly, "Jill!" No answer. ''Jilir' Not 
a sound. "O— JILL!" 

But he did not speak. So then I knew Jill must be 
dead, at any rate. I couldn't help wondering why he was 
so much deader than I that he couldn't answer a fellow. 
Pretty soon I heard a rusthng noise around my feet. Then 
a weak, sick kind of a noise— just the noise I always had 
supposed ghosts would make if they talked. 

''Jack?" 

"Is that you, Jill?" 

' * I — suppose— so . Is it you , Jack ? " 

" Yes. Are you dead ? " 

"I don't know. Are you?" 

"I guess I must be if you are. How awfully dark it 
is!" 

"Awfully dark ! It must have been the comet !" 

"Yes; did you get much hurt?" 

"Not much— I say — ^Jack ? ' ' 

"What?" 

"If it is the Judgment Day—" Jill broke up. So did 
I. We lay as still as we could. If it were the Judgment 
Day 

"JiU!"saidL 

"Oh, dear me !" sobbed Jill. 

We were both crying by that time. I don't feel ashamed 
to own up, as far as I'm concerned. 

"If I'd known," said I, "that the Day of Judgment was 
coming on the 12th of August, I wouldn't have been so mean 
about that jack-knife of yours with the notch in it !" 

"And I wouldn't have eaten up your luncheon that day 
last winter when I got mad at you," said Jill. 

"Nor we wouldn't have cheated mother about smoking, 
vacations," said I. 



Writers of the Mid-Centwy and After 233 

"I'd never have played with the Bailey boys out behind 
the bam ! " said Jill. 

"I wonder where the comet went to," said I. 

"'Whether we shall be plunged into,'" quoted Jill, in a 
horrible whisper, from that dreadful newspaper, "'shall 
be plunged into a wild vortex of angry space — or suffo- 
cated with noxious gases — or scorched to a helpless crisp 
— or blasted '" 

"When do you suppose they'll come after us?" I in- 
terrupted Jill. 

That very minute somebody came. We heard a step, 
and then another. Then a heavy bang. Jill howled out 
a little. I didn't, for I was thinking how the cellar door 
banged Kke that. 

Then came a voice, an awful, hoarse and trembHng voice 
as ever you'd want to hear. " George Zacharias !" 

Then I knew it must be the Judgment Day and that the 
Angel had me up in court to answer him. For you 
couldn't expect an angel to call you Jack when you were 
dead. 

"George Zacharias!" said the awful voice again. I 
didn't know what else to do, I was so frightened, so I just 
hollered out, "Here !" as I do at school. 

"Timothy !" came the voice once more. 

Now Jill had a bright idea. Up he shouted, "Absent !" 
at the top of his lungs. 

"George! Jack! Jill ! where a/-^ you ? Are you killed? 
0, wait a minute and I'll bring a Hght !" 

This didn't sound so much Hke Judgment Day as it did 
like Aunt John. I began to feel better. So did Jill. I 
sat up. So did he. It wasn't a minute till the Hght 
came into sight and something that looked Hke the cellar 
door, the ceHar stairs, and Aunt John's spotted wrapper, 
and Miss Togy in a night-gown, away behind, as white as 
a ghost. Aunt John held the Hght above her head and 
looked down. I don't beHeve I shall ever see an angel 
that will make me feel any better to look at than Aunt 
John did that night. 

"0 you blessed boys !" said Aunt John, — she was laugh- 



234 American Literature 

ing and crying together. "To think that you should have 
fallen through the old chimney to the cellar floor and be 
sitting there ahve in such a funny heap as that !" 

That was just what we had done. The old flooring — 
not very secure — had given way in the storm; and we'd 
gone down through two stories, where the chimney ought 
to have been, jam ! into the cellar on the coal heap, and all 
as good as ever excepting the bedstead ! 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 
I. For Further Illustration 

Alcott, L.: Eight Cousins. 

Little Men. 

Little Women. 
Aldrich, T. B.: Marjorie Daw. {In^Marjorie Daw and Other 
Stories.) 

Pere Antoine's Date Palm. (In Marjorie Daw and Other 
Stories.) 

Two Bites at a Cherry. 

Babie BelJ.^^¥kiilia. (Poems.) 
Clemens, S. L. : A DogTTale. 

Col. Mulberry Sellers. 

Huckleberry Finn. 

Innocents Abroad. 

Tom Sawyer. 
Hale, E. E.: The Man Without a Country. 
Harte, B.: M'Liss. (In Luck of Roaring Camp.) 

Tennessee's Partner. (In Luck of Roaring Camp.) 

The Outcasts of Poker Flat.' (In Luck^f Roaring Cathp.) The 
Heathen Chinee. (Poem.) 
Jackson, H. H.: Ramona. 

Sonnets and Lyrics. 
Mitchell, D. G.: Reveries of a Bachelor. 

Stockton, F. R.: A Story of Seven Devils. (In Amos Kilbright 
and Others.) 

Rudder Grange. 
Stowe, H. B.: Uncle Tom's Cabin. 
Wallace, Lew: Ben-Hur. A Tale of the Christ. 
Ward, E. S. Phelps: An Old Maid's Paradise. (In Old Maids 
and Burglars in Paradise.) 

The Gates Ajar. 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 235 

II. For Collateral Reading 

Nicholson, M.: The Hoosiers. (In National Studies in American 

Letters.) 
Whitman, W. : Mississippi Valley Literature. (In Specimen Days.) 

PROSE — NON-FICTION 

I. Edward Everett (i 794-1 865), one of America's great 
scholars, orators, and statesmen, was a graduate of Harvard 
and president of the college from 1845 to 1849. He was 
successively Governor of Massachusetts, United States Sen- 
ator, Secretary of State, and Ambassador to England. He 
was an eloquent public speaker and is perhaps best remembered 
as an orator. 

Washington Abroab anb at HeME 

(From The Character of Washington. A speech delivered February 
22, 1856) 

I feel, sir, more and more, as I advance in life, and 
watch with mingled confidence, solicitude, and hope, the 
development of the momentous drama of our national 
existence, seeking to penetrate that future which His Ex- 
cellency has so eloquently foreshadowed, that it is well 
worth our while — that it is at once one of our highest 
social duties and important pri\T[leges — to celebrate with 
ever-increasing solemnity, wdth annually augmented pomp 
and circumstance of festal commemoration, the anniver- 
sary of the nation's birth, were it only as affording a fit- 
ting occasion to bring the character and ser\-ices of Wash- 
ington, with ever fresh recognition, to the public attention, 
as the great central figure of that unparalleled group, that 
"noble army" of chieftains, sages, and patriots, by whom 
the Revolution was accomplished. 

This is the occasion, and here is the spot, and this is the 
day, and we citizens of Boston are the men, if any in the 
land, to throw wide open the portals of the temple of 
memory and fame, and there gaze with the eyes of a rev- 
erent and grateful imagination on his benignant counte- 
nance and majestic form. This is the occasion and the 



236 American Literature 

day; for who needs to be told how much the cause of inde- 
pendence owes to the services and character of Washing- 
ton; to the purity of that stainless purpose, to the firmness 
of that resolute soul? This is the spot, this immortal 
hall, from which as from an altar went forth the burning 
coals that kindled into a consuming fire at Lexington and 
Concord, at Bunker Hill and Dorchester Heights. We 
citizens of Boston are the men; for the first great success 
of Washington in the Revolutionary War was to restore 
to our fathers their ancient and beloved town. This is 
the time, the accepted time, when the voice of the Father 
of his Country cries aloud to us from the sods of Mount 
Vernon, and calls upon us, east and west, north and south, 
as the brethren of one great household, to be faithful to 
the dear-bought inheritance which he did so much to 
secure for us. 

But the fame of Washington is not confined to our own 
country. Bourdaloue, in his eulogy on the military saint 
of France, exclaims, "The other saints have been given by 
the Church to France, but France in return has given St. 
Louis to the church." Born into the family of nations in 
these latter days, receiving from foreign countries and 
inheriting from ancient times the bright and instructive 
example of all their honored sons, it is the glory of America, 
in the very dawn of her national existence, to have given 
back to the world many names of which the luster will 
never fade; and especially one name of which the whole 
family of Christendom is willing to acknowledge the un- 
envied pre-eminence; a name of which neither Greece nor 
Rome, nor repubhcan Italy, Switzerland, nor Holland, 
nor constitutional England can boast the rival. "A char- 
acter of virtues so happily tempered by one another" (I 
use the language of Charles James Fox), "and so wholly 
unalloyed by any vices, is hardly to be found on the pages 
of history." 

It is delightful to witness the generous recognition of 
Washington's merits, even in countries where, from po- 
Htical reasons, some backwardness in that respect might 
have been anticipated. Notwithstanding his leading agency 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 237 

in wresting a colonial empire from Great Britain, England 
was not slow to appreciate the grandeur and beauty 
of his character. Mr. Rufus King, our minister at that 
time to the Court of St. James, writing to General Hamil- 
ton in 1797, says: 

"No one who has not been in England can have a just 
idea of the admiration expressed among all parties for 
General Washington. It is a common observation, that 
he is not only the most illustrious, but the most meritori- 
ous character which has yet appeared." 

Nor was France behind England in her admiration of 
Washington. Notwithstanding the uneasy relations of 
the two countries at the time of his decease, when the news 
of his death reached Paris, the youthful and fortunate 
soldier who had already reached the summit of power by 
paths which Washington could never have trod, com- 
manded the highest honors to be paid to his memory. 
"Washington," he immediately exclaimed, in the orders 
of the day, "is dead! v This great man fought against 
tyranny; he consolidated the Hberty of his country. His 
memory will be ever dear to the French people, as to all 
freemen in both hemispheres, and especially to the soldiers 
of France, who like him and the American soldiers are 
fighting for-'liberty and equahty. In consequence, the 
First Consul orders that for ten days black crape shall be 
suspended from all the standards and banners of the re- 
pubhc." By order of Napoleon a solemn funeral service 
was performed in the "InvaHdes," in the presence of all 
that was most eminent in Paris. "A sorrowful cry," said 
Fontanes, the orator chosen for the occasion, "has reached 
us from America, which he liberated. It belongs to 
France to yield the first response to the lamentation which 
wiU be echoed by every great soul. These august arches 
have been well chosen for the apotheosis of a hero." 

How often in those wild scenes of her revolution, when 
the best blood of France was shed by the remorseless and 
ephemeral tyrants who chased each other, dagger in hand, 
across that dismal stage of crime and woe, during the reign 
of terror, how often did the thoughts of Lafayette and his 



238 American Literature 

companions in arms, who had fought the battles of con- 
stitutional Hberty in America, call up the image of the 
pure, the just, the humane, the unambitious Washington ! 
How different would have been the fate of France, if her 
victorious chieftain, when he had reached the giddy heights 
of power, had imitated the great example which he caused 
to be eulogized ! He might have saved his country from 
being crushed by the leagued hosts of Europe; he might 
have prevented the names of Moscow and Waterloo from 
being written in letters of blood on the pages of history; 
he might have escaped himself the sad significance of those 
memorable words of Fontanes, on the occasion to which 
I have alluded, when, in the presence of Napoleon, he spoke 
of Washington as a man who, "by a destiny seldom shared 
by those who change the fate of empires, died in peace as 
a private citizen, in his native land, where he had held 
the first rank, and which he had himself made free !" 

How different would have been the fate of Spain, of 
Naples, of Greece, of Germany, of Mexico, and the South 
American Republics, had their recent revolutions been con- 
ducted by men Uke Washington and his patriotic associates, 
whose prudence, patriotism, probity, and disinterestedness 
conducted our Revolution to an auspicious and honorable 
result ! 

But it is, of course, at home that we must look for an 
adequate appreciation of our Washington's services and 
worth. He is the friend of the Hberties of other countries; 
he is the father of his own. I own, Mr. Mayor, that it 
has been to me a source of inexpressible satisfaction, to 
find, amidst all the bitter dissensions of the day, that this 
one grand sentiment, veneration for the name of Washing- 
ton, is buried — no, planted — ^down in the very depths of 
the American heart. It has been my privilege within the 
last two years to hold it up to the reverent contemplation 
of my countrymen, from the banks of the Penobscot to 
the banks of the Savannah, from New York to St. Louis, 
from Chesapeake Bay to Lake Michigan; and the same 
sentiments, expressed in the same words, have everywhere 
touched a sympathetic chord in the American heart. 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 239 

To that central attraction I have been delighted to find 
that the thoughts, the affections, the memories of the 
people, in whatever part of the country, from the ocean 
to the prairies of the West, from the land of granite and 
ice to the land of the palmetto and the magnoHa, instinc- 
tively turn. They have their sectional loves and hatreds, 
but before the dear name of Washington they are all ab- 
sorbed and forgotten. In whatever region of the country, 
the heart of patriotism warms to him; as in the starry 
heavens, with the circling of the seasons, the pointers go 
round the sphere, but their direction is ever toward the 
pole. They may point from the east, they may point from 
the west, but they will point to the northern star. It is 
not the brightest luminary in the heavens, as men account 
brightness, but it is always in its place. The meteor, 
kindled into momentary blaze from the rank vapors of the 
lower sky, is brighter. The comet is brighter that streams 
across the firmament, 

" And from his horrid hair 
Shakes pestilence and war." 

But the meteor explodes; the comet rushes back to the 
depths of the heavens; while the load-star shines steady 
at the pole, alike in summer and in winter, in seed-time 
and in harvest, at the equinox and the solstice. It shone 
for Columbus at the discovery of America; it shone for 
the pioneers of settlement, the pilgrims of faith and hope 
at Jamestown and Plymouth; it will shine for the mariner 
who shall enter your harbor to-night; it will shine for the 
navies which shall bear the sleeping thunders of your power 
while the flag of the Union shall brave the battle and the 
breeze. So, too, the character, the counsels, the example 
of our Washington, of which you bid me speak: they 
guided our fathers through the storms of the Revolution; 
they will guide us through the doubts and difficulties that 
beset us; they will guide our children and our children's 
children in the paths of prosperity and peace, while Amer- 
ica shall hold her place in the family of nations. 



240 American Literature 

2. Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), President of the United 
States from 1861 to 1865, was after Washington the greatest of 
all America's public men. Lincoln's speeches rank as classics 
in our literature because of their simple, direct, unadorned style. 
Again in his case the style is the man — sincere, unaffected, 
forceful. Every American should know the Gettysburg Address 
by heart. 

Address at the Dedication of the Gettysbxjrg 
National Cemetery, November 19, 1863 

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought 
forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, 
and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created 
equal. 

Now we are engaged in a great dvil war, testing whether 
that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, 
can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of 
that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that 
field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their 
lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting 
and proper that we should do this. 

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate — we cannot 
consecrate — we cannot hallow — this ground. > The brave 
men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated 
it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world 
will little note nor long remember what we say here, but 
it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the 
living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work 
which they who fought here have thus far so nobly ad- 
vanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great 
task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we 
take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave 
the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly 
resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that 
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; 
and that government of the people, by the people, for the 
people, shall not perish from the earth. 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 241 

Second Inaugural Address (March 4, 1865) 

Fellow-countrymen: At this second appearing to take the 
oath of the presidential office, there is less occasion for an 
extended address than there was at the first. Then a 
statement, somewhat in detail, of a course to be pursued, 
seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of 
four years, during which public declarations have been con- 
stantly called forth on every point and phase of the great 
contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the 
energies of the nation, little that is new can be presented. 

On the occasion corresponding to this, four years ago, 
all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil 
war. All dreaded it— all sought to avoid it. While the 
inaugural address was being deHvered from this place, 
devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, 
insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it 
without war, seeking to dissolve the Union and divide the 
effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war; but 
one of them would make war rather than let the nation 
survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it 
perish. And the war came. 

One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, 
not distributed generally over the Union, but locaUzed 
in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a 
peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest 
was, somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen, per- 
petuate, and extend this interest was the object for which 
the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war; while 
the Government claimed no right to do more than to re- 
strict the territorial enlargement of it. 

Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or 
the duration which it has already attained. Neither antic- 
ipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or 
even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked 
for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and 
astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the 
same God; and each invokes his aid against the other. 
It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a 



242 American Literature 

just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the 
sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not, that we 
be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; 
that of neither has been answered fully. 

The Almighty has His own purposes. . . . Fondly do 
we hope — ^fervently do we pray — that this mighty scourge 
of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it 
shall continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman's 
two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be 
sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash 
shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said 
three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "The 
judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." 

With mahce toward none; with charity for all; with 
firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let 
us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the 
nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne 
the battle, and for his widow and his orphan; to do all 
which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace 
among ourselves, and with all nations. 

3. Wendell Phillips (1811-1884) was a great antislavery 
orator. Before the Civil War he devoted most of his time to 
the cause of the abolitionists. His best-known address is 
Toussaint DOuverture, an extract from which follows. 

The Greatness of Toussaint L'Ouverture 

(From Toussaint L'Ouverture. First delivered in 1861) 

If I were to tell you the story of Napoleon, I should take 
it from the lips of Frenchmen, who find no language rich 
enough to paint the great captain of the nineteenth cen- 
tury. Were I to tell you the story of Washington, I should 
take it from your hearts — you, who think no marble white 
enough on which to carve the name of the Father of his 
Country. But I am to tell you the story of a negro, Tous- 
saint L'Ouverture, who has left hardly one written fine. 
I am to glean it from the reluctant testimony of his ene- 
mies, men who despised him because he was a negro and a 
slave, and hated him because he had beaten them in battle. 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 243 

Cromwell manufactured his own army. Napoleon, at 
the age of twenty-seven, was placed at the head of the 
best troops Europe ever saw. Cromwell never saw an 
army till he was forty; this man never saw a soldier till he 
was fifty. Cromwell manufactured his own army — out 
of what? Englishmen, the best blood in Europe; out of 
the middle class of Enghshmen, the best blood of the 
island. And with it he conquered what? Enghshmen, 
their equals. This man manufactured his army out of 
what ? Out of what you call the despicable race of negroes, 
debased, demoralized by two hundred years of slavery, 
one hundred thousand of them imported into the island 
within four years, unable to speak a dialect intelligible 
even to each other. Yet out of this mixed, and, as you say, 
despicable mass, he forged a thunderbolt and hurled it at 
what? At the proudest blood in Europe, the Spaniard, 
and sent him home conquered; at the most warlike blood 
in Europe, the French, and put them under his feet; at the 
pluckiest blood in Europe, the English, and they skulked 
home to Jamaica. Now if Cromwell was a general, at 
least this man was a soldier. 



Some doubt the courage of the negro. Go to Haiti, 
and stand on those fifty thousand graves of the best soldiers 
France ever had, and ask them what they think of the 
negro's sword. 

I would call him Napoleon, but Napoleon made his 
way to empire over broken oaths and through a sea of blood. 
This man never broke his word. I would call him Crom- 
well, but Cromwell was only a soldier, and the state he 
founded went down with him into his grave. I would call 
him Washington, but the great Virginian held slaves. 
This man risked his empire rather than permit the slave- 
trade in the humblest village of his dominions. 

You think me a fanatic, for you read history, not with 
your eyes, but with your prejudices. But fifty years hence, 
when Truth gets a hearing, the Muse of History will write 
Phocion for the Greek, Brutus for the Roman, Hampden 



244 American Literature 

for England, Fayette for France, choose Washington as 
the bright consummate flower of our earlier civilization, 
then, dipping her pen in the sunlight, will write in the clear 
blue, above them all, the name of the soldier, the statesman, 
the martyr, Toussaint L'Ouverture. 

4. John Lothrop Motley (1814-1877) was one of our great 
historians. He was a graduate of Harvard and afterward 
studied in Germany. His monumental work is The Rise of the 
Dutch Republic, an extract from which follows. 

Brussels in the Sixteenth Century 
(From The Rise of the Dutch Republic, Volume I, Chapter I) 

On the twenty-fifth day of October, 1555, the estates 
of the Netherlands were assembled in the great hall of the 
palace at Brussels. They had been summoned to be the 
witnesses and the guarantees of the abdication which 
Charles V had long before resolved upon, and which he was 
that day to execute. . . . 

The gay capital of Brabant — of that province which 
rejoiced in the Hberal constitution known by the cheerful 
title of the "joyful entrance," was worthy to be the scene 
of the imposing show. Brussels had been a city for more 
than five centuries, and, at that day, numbered about one 
hundred thousand inhabitants. Its walls, six miles in cir- 
cumference, were already two hundred years old. Unlike 
most Netherland cities, lying usually upon extensive plains, 
it was built along the sides of an abrupt promontory. A 
wide expanse of Uving verdure, cultivated gardens, shady 
groves, fertile corn-fields, flowed round it like a sea. The 
foot of the town was washed by the little river Senne, while 
the irregular but picturesque streets rose up the steep sides 
of the hill like the semicircles and stairways of an amphi- 
theatre. Nearly in the heart of the place rose the audacious 
and exquisitely embroidered tower of the town-house, three 
hundred and sixty-six feet in height, a miracle of needle- 
work in stone, rivalling in its intricate carving the cobweb 
tracery of that lace which has for centuries been synonymous 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 245 

with the city, and rearing itself above a facade of profusely 
decorated and brocaded architecture. The crest of the el- 
evation was crowned by the towers of the old ducal palace of 
Brabant, with its extensive and thickly-wooded park on the 
left, and by the stately mansions of Orange, Egmont, Arem- 
berg, Culemburg, and other Flemish grandees, on the right. 
The great forest of Soignies, dotted with monasteries and 
convents, swarming with every variety of game, whither 
the citizens made their summer pilgrimages, and where 
the nobles chased the wild boar and the stag, extended to 
within a quarter of a mile of the city walls. The popula- 
tion, as thrifty, as intelHgent, as prosperous as that of any 
city in Europe, was divided into fifty- two guilds of arti- 
sans, among which the most important were the armorers, 
whose suits of mail would turn a musket-ball; the garden- 
ers, upon whose gentler creations incredible sums were 
annually lavished; and the tapestry-workers, whose gor- 
geous fabrics were the wonder of the world. Seven prin- 
cipal churches, of which the most striking was that of St. 
Gudule, with its twin towers, its charming fagade, and its 
magnificently painted windows, adorned the upper part 
of the city. The number seven was a magic number in 
Brussels, and was supposed at that epoch, during which 
astronomy was in its infancy and astrology in its prime, 
to denote the seven planets which governed all things 
terrestrial by their aspects and influences. Seven noble 
families, springing from seven ancient castles, supplied 
the stock from which the seven senators were selected who 
composed the upper council of the city. There were seven 
great squares, seven city gates, and upon the occasion of 
the present ceremony, it was observed by the lovers of 
wonderful coincidences, that seven crowned heads would 
be congregated under a single roof in the Hberty-loving 
city. 

The palace where the states-general were upon this oc- 
casion convened, had been the residence of the Dukes of 
Brabant since the days of John the Second, who had built 
it about the year 1300. It was a spacious and convenient 
building, but not distinguished for the beauty of its archi- 



246 American Literature 

tecture. In front was a large open square, enclosed by 
an iron railing; in the rear an extensive and beautiful 
park, filled with forest trees, and containing gardens 
and labyrinths, fish-ponds and game preserves, fountains 
and promenades, race-courses and archery grounds. The 
main entrance to this edifice opened upon a spacious hall, 
connected with a beautiful and symmetrical chapel. The 
hall was celebrated for its size, harmonious proportions, 
and the richness of its decorations. It was the place 
where the chapters of the famous order of the Golden 
Fleece were held. Its walls were hung with a magnificent 
tapestry of Arras, representing the Hfe and achievements 
of Gideon, the Midianite, and giving particular prominence 
to the miracle of the ''fleece of wool," vouchsafed to that 
renowned champion, the great patron of the Knights of 
the Fleece. On the present occasion there were various 
additional embelhshments of flowers and votive garlands. 
At the western end a spacious platform or stage, with six 
or seven steps, had been constructed, below which was a 
range of benches for the deputies of the seventeen provinces. 
Upon the stage itself there were rows of seats, covered with 
tapestry, upon the right hand and upon the left. These 
were respectively to accommodate the knights of the order 
and the guests of high distinction. In the rear of these 
were other benches, for the members of the three great 
councils. In the centre of the stage was a splendid canopy, 
decorated with the arms of Burgundy, beneath which were 
placed three gilded arm-chairs. All the seats upon the 
platform were vacant, but the benches below, assigned to 
the deputies of the provinces, were already filled. Numer- 
ous representatives from all the states but two — Gelder- 
land and Overyssel — had already taken their places. Grave 
magistrates, in chain and gown, and executive officers in 
the splendid civic uniforms for which the Netherlands 
were celebrated, already filled every seat within the space 
allotted. The remainder of the hall was crowded with 
the more favored portion of the multitude which had been 
fortunate enough to procure admission to the exhibition. 
The archers and hallebardiers of the body-guard kept 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 247 

watch at all the doors. The theatre was filled— the au- 
dience was eager with expectation — the actors were yet to 
arrive. As the clock struck three the hero of the scene 
appeared. Caesar, as he was always designated in the 
classic language of the day, entered, leaning on the shoul- 
der of William of Orange. They came from the chapel, 
and were immediately followed by PhilHp the Second and 
Queen Mary of Hungary. The Archduke Maximilian, 
the Duke of Savoy, and other great personages came after- 
wards, accompanied by a glittering throng of warriors, 
councillors, governors, and Knights of the Fleece. 

5. Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) was a famous preacher 
and an eloquent public speaker. He lectured much on the 
cause of the slave in England as well as in America. The fol- 
lowing extract is typical. 

Difficulties of Union 
(From the speech delivered in Edinburgh, October 14, 1863) 

It shall be my business to speak, for the most part, of 
what I know, and so to speak that you shall be in no doubt 
whatever of my convictions. 

America has been going through an extraordinary revo- 
lution, unconsciously and interiorly, which began when 
her present national form was assumed, which is now devel- 
oping itself, but which existed and was in progress just as 
much before as now. The earher problem was how to 
establish an absolute independence in states from all 
external control. Next, how, out of independent states 
to form a nation, yet without destroying local sovereignty. 
The period of germination and growth of the Union of the 
separate colonies is threefold. The first colonies that 
planted the American shores were separate, and jealous 
of their separateness. Sent from the mother country with 
a strong hatred of oppression, they went with an intense 
individualism, and sought to set up, each party, its Uttle 
colony, where they would be free to follow their convic- 
tions and the dictates of conscience. And nothing is more 



248 Ainerican Literature 

characteristic of the earUer politics of the colonists than 
their jealous isolation, for fear that even contact would 
contaminate. Two or three efforts were made within the 
first twenty or twenty-five years of their existence to bring 
them together in union. Delegates met and parted, met 
again and parted. Indian wars drove them together. It 
became, by external dangers, necessary that there should 
be a union of those early colonies, but there was a fear that 
in going into union they would lose something of the sover- 
eignty that belonged to them as colonial states. The first 
real union that took place was that of 1643, between the 
colonists of what is now New England. It was not till 
1777, a year and a half after the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence, and while the colonies were at full war with the 
mother country, that what are called the Articles of Federa- 
tion were adopted. But about ten years after these ar- 
ticles were framed they were found to be utterly inadequate 
for the exigencies of the times; and in 1787 the present 
Constitution of the United States was adopted by conven- 
tion, and, at different dates thereafter, ratified by the thir- 
teen states that first constituted the present Union. 

Now during all this period there is one thing to be re- 
marked, and that is, the jealousy of state independence. 
The states were feeHng their way toward nationahty; and 
the rule and measure of the wisdom of every step was, how 
to maintain individuahty with nationahty. That was 
their problem. How can there be absolute independence 
in local government with perfect nationahty? Slavery was 
only incidental during all this long period; but in reading 
from contemporaneous documents and debates that took 
place in conventions both for confederation and for final 
union, it is remarkable that the difficulties which arose 
were difficulties of representation, difficulties of taxation, 
difficulties of tariff and revenue; and, so far as we can find, 
neither North nor South anticipated in the future any of 
those dangers which have overspread the continent from 
the black cloud of slavery. The dangers they most feared, 
they have suffered least from; the dangers they have suf- 
fered from, they did not at all anticipate, or but Httle. 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 249 

But the Union was formed. The Constitution, defining 
the national power conferred by the states on the federal 
government, was adopted. Thenceforward, for fifty years 
and more, the country developed itself in wealth and 
poHtical power, until, from a condition of feeble states ex- 
hausted by war, it rose to the dignity of a first-class nation. 
We now turn our attention to the gradual and uncon- 
scious development within this American nation of two 
systems of poHcy, antagonistic and irreconcilable. Let us 
look at the South first. She was undergoing unconscious 
transmutation. She did not know it. She did not know 
what ailed her. She felt ill, put her hand on her heart 
sometimes; on her head sometimes; but had no doctor 
to tell her what it was, until too late; and when told she 
would not believe. For it is a fact that when the colonies 
combined in their final union, slavery was waning not only 
in the Middle and Northern states but also in the South 
itself. When therefore they went into this union, slavery 
was perishing, partly by cHmate in the North, and still 
more by the convictions of the people, and by the unpro- 
ductive character of farm slavery. The first period of the 
South was the wane and weakness of slavery. The second 
period is the increase of slavery, and its apologetic de- 
fense; for with the invention of the cotton gin an extraor- 
dinary demand for cotton sprang up. Slave labor began to 
be more and more in demand, and the price of slaves rose. 
Then came the next period, one of revolution of opinion 
as to the inferior races of the South, a total and entire 
change in the doctrines of the South on the question of 
human rights and human nature. It dates from Mr. 
Calhoun. From the hour that Mr. Calhoun began to 
teach, there commenced a silent process of moral deteriora- 
tion. I call it a retrogression in morals — an apostasy. 
Men no longer apologized for slavery; they learned to 
defend it, to teach that it was the normal condition of an 
inferior race; that the seeds and history of it were in the 
Word of God; that the only condition in which a republic 
can be prosperous is where an aristocracy owns the labor 
of the community. That was the doctrine of the South, 



250 American Literature 

and with that doctrine there began to be ambitious designs 
not only for the maintenance but the propagation of 
slavery. This era of propagation and aggression con- 
stitutes the fourth and last period of the revolution of the 
South. They had passed through a whole cycle of changes. 
These changes followed certain great laws. No sooner was 
the new philosophy set on foot than the South recognized 
its legitimacy and accepted it with all its inferences and 
inevitable tendencies. They gave up wavering and mis- 
givings, adopted the institution— praised it, loved it, de- 
fended it, sought to maintain it, burned to spread it. 
During the last fifteen years I believe you cannot find a 
voice, printed or uttered, in the cotton states of the South, 
which deplored slavery. All believed in and praised it, 
and found authority for it in God's Word. PoHticians 
admired it, merchants appreciated it, the whole South 
sang paeans to the new-found truth, that man was born to 
be owned by man. This change of doctrine made it cer- 
tain that the South would be annoyed and irritated by a 
Constitution which, with all its faults, still carried the God- 
given principle of human rights, which were not to be taken 
by man except in punishment for crime. That Constitu- 
tion, and the policy which went with it at first, began to 
gnaw at, and irritate, and fret the South, after they had 
adopted slavery as a doctrine. 

The great cause of the conflict — the center of necessity, 
round which the cannons roar and the bayonets gleam — is 
the preservation of slavery. Beyond slavery there is no 
difference between North and South. Their interests are 
identical, with the exception of work. The North is for 
free work — the South is for slave work ; and the whole war 
in the South, though it is for independence, is, nevertheless, 
expressly in order to have slavery more firmly established 
by that independence. On the other hand, the whole policy 
of the North as well as the whole work of the North, re- 
joicing at length to be set free from antagonism, bribes, 
and intimidations, is for liberty — liberty for every man in 
the world. 

There never was so united a purpose as there is to-day 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 251 

to crush the rebelUon. We have had nearly three years 
of turmoil and disturbance, which not only has not taken 
away that determination, but has increased it. The loss 
of our sons in battle has been grievous, but we accept it 
as God's will, and we are determined that every martyred 
son shall have a representative in one hundred liberated 
slaves/^ 

6. Bayard Taylor (1825-1878) was a native of Pennsylvania. 
He travelled extensively in Europe, Asia, and Africa and 
wrote several volumes descriptive of his travels. At the time 
of his death he was Minister to Germany. He was a poet as 
well as a prose-writer and achieved fame as a translator of 
Goethe's Faust. 



A Glimpse of Mendelssohn 

(From Views A-Foot, Chapter XVI) 

Mendelssohn, one of the greatest living composers, has 
been spending the winter here, and I have been fortunate 
enough to see him twice. One sunny day, three weeks 
ago, when all the population of Frankfort turned out upon 
the budding promenades and the broad quays along the 
Main, to enjoy the first spring weather, I went on my 
usual afternoon stroll, with my friend Wilhs, whose glow- 
ing talk concerning his art is quite as refreshing to me after 
the day's study in the gloomy Markt-platz, as are the 
blue hills of Spessart, which we see from the bridge over 
the river. As we were threading the crowd of boatmen, 
Tyrolese, Suabians, and Bohemians, on the quay, my eye 
was caught by a man who came towards us, and whose 
face and air were in such striking contrast to those about 
him, that my whole attention was at once fixed upon him. 
He was simply and rather negligently dressed in dark 
cloth, with a cravat tied loosely about his neck. His 
beard had evidently not been touched for two or three 
days, and his black hair was long and frowzed by the 
wind. His eyes, which were large, dark, and kindling, 
were directed forward and lifted in the abstraction of some 



252 American Literature 

absorbing thought, and as he passed, I heard him singing 
to himself in a voice deep but not loud, and yet with a far 
different tone from that of one who hums a careless air as 
he walks. But a few notes caught my ear, yet I remember 
their sound, elevated and with that scarcely perceptible 
vibration which betrays a feehng below the soul's surface, 
as distinctly now as at the time. Willis grasped my arm 
quickly, and said in a low voice, "Mendelssohn!" I 
turned hastily, and looked after him as he went down the 
quay, apparently but half conscious of the stirring scenes 
around him. I could easily imagine how the balmy, indo- 
lent sensation in the air, so hke a soothing and tranquil- 
Uzing strain of music, should have led him into the serene 
and majestic realm of his own creations. 

It was something to have seen a man of genius thus 
alone and in communion with his inspired thoughts, and 
I could not repress a feehng of pleasure at the idea of having 
unconsciously acknowledged his character before I knew 
his name. After this passing ghmpse, this flash of him, 
however, came the natural desire to see his features in 
repose, and obtain some impression of his personality. 
An opportunity soon occurred. The performance of his 
"Walpurgisnacht," by the CaeciHen-Verein, a day or two 
thereafter, increased the enthusiasm I had before felt for 
his works, and full of the recollection of its subhme Druid 
choruses, I wrote a few lines to him, expressive of the de- 
Ught they had given me, and of my wash to possess his 
name in autograph, that I might take to America some 
token connected with their remembrance. The next day 
I received a very kind note in reply, enclosing a man- 
uscript score of a chorus from the "Walpurgisnacht." 

Summoning up my courage the next morning, I decided 
on calUng upon him in person, feehng certain that he 
would understand the motive which prompted me to take 
such a liberty. I had no difhculty in finding his residence 
in the Bockenheimer Gasse in the western part of the city. 
The servant ushered me into a handsomely furnished room, 
with a carpet, an unusual thing in German houses; a 
grand piano occupied one side of the apartment. These 



Writers of the Mia- Century and After 253 

struck my eye on entering, but my observation was cut 
short by the appearance of Mendelssohn. A few words 
of introduction served to remove any embarrassment I 
might have felt on account of my unceremonious call, and 
I was soon put entirely at ease by his frank and friendly 
manner. As he sat opposite to me, beside a small table, 
covered with articles of vertii, I was much struck with the 
high intellectual beauty of his countenance. His fore- 
head is white, unwrinkled, and expanding above, in the 
region of the ideal faculties. His eyes are large, very dark, 
and lambent with a light that seemed to come through 
them — like the phosphorescent gleam on the ocean at mid- 
night. I have observed this peculiar character of the eye 
only in men of the highest genius. None of the engrav- 
ings of Mendelssohn which have yet been made give any 
idea of the kindling effect which is thus given to his face. 
His nose is shghtly prominent, and the traces of his Jewish 
blood are seen in this, as well as the thin but delicate curve 
of the upper lip, and the high cheek-bones. Yet it is the 
Jewish face softened and spirituaHzed, retaining none of 
its coarser characteristics. The faces of Jewish youth 
are of a rare and remarkable beauty, but this is scarcely 
ever retained beyond the first period of manhood. In 
Mendelssohn, the perpetual youth of spirit, which is the 
gift of genius alone, seems to have kept his features moulded 
to its expression, while the approach of maturer years but 
heightens and strengthens its character. 

He spoke of German music, and told me I should hear 
it best performed in Vienna and Berlin. Some remarks 
on America led him to speak of the proposed Musical Festi- 
val in New York. He has received a letter inviting him 
to assist in it, and said he would gladly attend it, but his 
duty to his family will not permit of his leaving. He ap- 
peared to be much gratified by the invitation, not only 
for the personal appreciation which it implied, but as a 
cheering sign of progress in the musical art. Mr. Willis, 
who met with Mendelssohn last summer, at the baths of 
Kronthal, said that he expressed much curiosity respecting 
our native negro melodies — which, after all, form the only 



254 American Literature 

peculiarly national music we possess — and that he con- 
siders some of them exceedingly beautiful and original. 

I did not feel at liberty to intrude long upon the morning 
hours of a composer, and took my leave after a short inter- 
view. Mendelssohn, at parting, expressed his warm in- 
terest in our country's progress, especially in the refined 
arts, and gave me a kind invitation to call upon him in 
whatever German city I should find him. 

7. George William Curtis (11824-189^) before the Civil War 
was an eloquent defender of the Union cause. He was con- 
nected for almost fifty years with Harper's Magazine as editor 
of the Easy Chair. His style is graceful and conversational, 
reminiscent at times of Charles Lamb and again of Addison. 

Mr. Potiphar's New House 

(From "A Meditation by Paul Potiphar, Esq.," in The Potiphar 
Papers) 

Well, my new house is finished — and so am I. I hope 
Mrs. Potiphar is satisfied. Everybody agrees that it is 
''palatial." The daily papers have had columns of de- 
scription, and I am, evidently, according to their authority, 
"munificent," "tasteful," "enterprising," and "patriotic." 

Amen ! but what business have I with palatial resi- 
dences ? What more can I possibly want, than a spacious, 
comfortable house? Do I want buhl escritoires? Do I 
want or molu things? Do I know anything about pic- 
tures and statues? In the name of heaven, do I want 
rose-pink bed curtains to give my grizzly old phiz a del- 
icate "auroral hue," as Cream Cheese says of Mrs. P.'s 
complexion! Because I have made fifty thousand this last 
year in Timbuctoo bonds must I convert it all into a 
house, so large that it will not hold me comfortably — so 
splendid that I might as well live in a porcelain vase, for 
the trouble of taking care of it — so prodigiously "palatial" 
that I have to skulk into my private room, put on my slip- 
pers, close the door, shut myself up with myself, and 
wonder why I married Mrs. Potiphar? 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After '^55 

Why does a man build a house? To live in, I suppose 
— to have a home. But is a fine house a home? I mean, 
is a "palatial residence," with Mrs. Potiphar at the head 
of it, the "home" of which we all dream more or less, and 
for which we ardently long as we grow older? A house, 
I take it, is a retreat to which a man hurries from business, 
and in which he is compensated by the tenderness and 
thoughtful regard of a woman, and the play of his children, 
for the rough rubs with men. I know it is a silly view of 
the case, but I'm getting old and can't help it. 



"You men are intolerable. . . . Men are tyrants, Mr. 
Potiphar. They are ogres who entice us poor girls into 
their castles, and then eat up our happiness, and scold us 
while they eat." 

Well, I suppose it is so. I suppose I am an ogre and 
enticed Polly into my castle. But she didn't find it large 
enough, and teased me to build another. 

"How about the library?" said she one day. 

"What hbrary?" inquired I. 

"Why, our Hbrary, of course." 

"I haven't any." 

"Do you mean to have such a house as this without a 
library?" 

"Why," said I plaintively, "I don't read books — I never 
did, and I never shall; and I don't care anything about 
them. Why should I have a hbrary ? " 

"Why, because it's part of a house hke this." 

"Mrs. P., are you fond of books?" 

"No, not particularly. But one must have some regard 
to appearances. Suppose we are Hottentots, you don't 
want us to look so, do you?" 

I thought that it was quite as barbarous to imprison a 
lot of books that we should never open, and that would 
stand in gilt upon the shelves, silently laughing us to 
scorn, as not to have them if we didn't want them. I 
proposed a compromise. 



256 American Literature 

"Is it the looks of the thing, Mrs. P. ?" said I. 

"That's all," she answered. 

"Oh ! well, I'll arrange it." 

So I had my shelves built, and my old friends Matthews 
and Rider furnish me with complete sets of handsome gilt 
covers to all the books that no gentleman's library should 
be without, which I arranged, carefully, upon the shelves, 
and had the best-looking Ubrary in town. I locked 'em 
in, and the key is always lost when anybody wants to take 
down a book. However, it was a good investment in 
leather, for it brings me in the reputation of a reading man 
and a patron of hterature. 



O ! dear me, I wonder if this is the "home sweet home" 
business the girls used to sing about ! Music does certainly 
alter cases. I can't quite get used to it. Last week I was 
one morning in the basement breakfast-room, and I heard 
an extra cried. I ran out of the area door — dear me ! — 
before I thought what I was about; I emerged bareheaded 
from under the steps, and ran a little way after the boy. 
I know it wasn't proper. I am sorry, very sorry. I am 
afraid Mrs. Croesus saw me; I know Mrs. Gnu told it all 
about that morning: and Mrs. Settum Downe called 
directly upon Mrs. Potiphar, to know if it were really true 
that I had lost my wits, as everybody was saying. I 
don't know what Mrs. P. answered. I am sorry to have 
compromised her so. I went immediately and ordered a 
pray-do of the blackest walnut. My resignation is very 
gradual. Kurz Pacha says they put on gravestones in 
Sennaar three Latin words — do you know Latin? if you 
don't, come and borrow some of my books. The words 
are: or a pro me! 

8. Francis Parkman (1823-1893) was a great historian and 
a master of English. His theme was America — the story of 
the pioneer in the West, of the conflicts of the settler and the 
Indian. He personally experienced the life about which he 
wrote, going West soon after graduating from Harvard and 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 257 

living with the Indians. The following extract illustrates the 
sincerity and soundness of his style. 

The Death of Pontiac 

(From The Conspiracy of Pontiac, Chapter XXXI) 

He who, at the present day, crosses from the city of St. 
Louis to the opposite shore of the Mississippi, and passes 
southward through a forest festooned with grape-vines, 
and fragrant with the scent of flowers, will soon emerge 
upon the ancient hamlet of Cahokia. To one fresh from 
the busy suburbs of the American city, the small French 
houses, scattered in picturesque disorder, the light-hearted, 
thriftless look of their inmates, and the woods which form 
the background of the picture, seem like the remnants 
of an earHer and simpler world. Strange changes have 
passed around that spot. Forests have fallen, cities have 
sprung up, and the lonely wilderness is thronged with 
human life. Nature herself has taken part in the general 
transformation; and the Mississippi has made a fearful 
inroad, robbing from the luckless Creoles a mile of rich 
meadow and woodland. Yet, in the midst of all, this 
relic of the lost empire of France has preserved its essen- 
tial features through the lapse of a century, and offers at 
this day an aspect not widely different from that which 
met the eye of Pontiac, when he and his chiefs landed on 
its shore. 

The place was full of Illinois Indians; such a scene as 
in our own time may often be met with in some squalid 
settlement of the border, where the vagabond guests, 
bedizened with dirty finery, tie their small horses in rows 
along the fences, and stroll idly among the houses, or 
lounge about the dramshops. A chief so renowned as 
Pontiac could not remain long among the friendly Creoles 
of Cahokia without being summoned to a feast; and at 
such primitive entertainment the whiskey-bottle would not 
fail to play its part. This was in truth the case. Pontiac 
drank deeply, and, when the carousal was over, strode 
down the village street to the adjacent woods, where he was 



258 American Literature 

heard to sing the medicine songs, in whose magic power 
he trusted as the warrant of success in all his undertakings. 

An EngUsh trader, named WilHamson, was then in the 
village. He had looked on the movements of Pontiac 
with a jealousy probably not diminished by the visit of 
the chief to the French at St. Louis; and he now resolved 
not to lose so favorable an opportunity to despatch him. 
With this view, he gained the ear of a strolHng Indian, 
belonging to the Kaskaskia tribe of the IlKnois, bribed him 
with a barrel of Uquor, and promised him a farther reward 
if he would kill the chief. The bargain was quickly made. 
When Pontiac entered the forest, the assassin stole close 
upon his track; and, watching his moment, gUded behind 
him, and buried a tomahawk in his brain. 

The dead body was soon discovered, and startled cries 
and wild howhngs announced the event. The word was 
caught up from mouth to mouth, and the place resounded 
with infernal yells. The warriors snatched their weapons. 
The Illinois took part with their guilty countryman; and 
the few followers of Pontiac, driven from the village, fled 
to spread the tidings and call the nations to revenge. 
Meanwhile the murdered chief lay on the spot where he 
had fallen, until St. Ange, mindful of former friendship, 
sent to claim the body, and buried it with warlike honors, 
near his fort of St. Louis. 

Thus basely perished this champion of a ruined race. 
But could his shade have revisited the scene of murder, his 
savage spirit would have exulted in the vengeance which 
overwhelmed the abettors of the crime. Whole tribes 
were rooted out to expiate it. Chiefs and sachems, whose 
veins had thrilled with his eloquence; young warriors, 
whose aspiring hearts had caught the inspiration of his 
greatness, mustered to revenge his fate; and, from the north 
and the east, their united bands descended on the villages 
of the IlHnois. Tradition has but faintly preserved the 
memory of the event; and its only annalists, men who 
held the intestine feuds of the savage tribes in no more 
account than the quarrels of panthers or wildcats, have 
left but a meagre record. Yet enough remains to tell us 



Wiiters of the Mid- Century and After 259 

that over the grave of Pontiac more blood was poured out 
in atonement, than flowed from the veins of the slaughtered 
heroes on the corpse of Patroclus; and the remnant of the 
Illinois who survived the carnage remained for ever after 
sunk in utter insignificance. 

Neither mound nor tablet marked the burial-place of 
Pontiac. For a mausoleum, a city has risen above the 
forest hero; and the race whom he hated with such burn- 
ing rancor trample with unceasing footsteps over his for- 
gotten grave. 

9. John Fiske (1842-1901) was another one of our most 
famous historians. He was long connected with Harvard. 
His theme, like Parkman's, was America, but he stressed the 
institutional and governmental side of the story of the Amer- 
ican nation. (For readings see Bibliography, p. 267.) 

10. Henry W. Grady (1850-1889), was an eloquent Southern 
speaker and writer who did much by his addresses and writings 
to establish the right feeling between the North and the South 
after the Civil War. 

The Old South and The New 

(From The New South, a speech delivered before the New England 
Society at its annual dinner in New York City, December 12, 
1886. This made a great sensation. Grady hirnself said: 
"When I found myself on my feet, — I knew then that I had 
a message for that assemblage. As soon as I opened my 
mouth it came rushing out.") 

"There was a South of slavery and secession — that 
South is dead. There is a South of union and freedom— 
that South, thank God, is living, breathing, growing every 
hour." These words, delivered from the immortal lips of 
Benjamin H. Hill at Tammany Hall in 1866, true then and 
true now, I shall make my text to-night. 



My friends, Dr. Talmage has told you that the typical 
American has yet to come. Let me tell you that he has 
already come. Great types, like valuable plants, are slow 



260 American Literature 

to flower and fruit. But from the union of these colonies, 
Puritans and Cavaliers, from the straightening of their 
purposes and the crossing of their blood, slow perfecting 
through a century, came he who stands as the first typical 
American, the first who comprehended within himself 
all the strength and gentleness, all the majesty and grace 
of this republic — Abraham Lincoln. He was the sum of 
Puritan and Cavalier, for in his ardent nature were fused 
the virtues of both, and in the depths of his great soul the 
faults of both were lost. He was greater than Puritan, 
greater than Cavaher, in that he was American, and that 
in his honest form were first gathered the vast and thrilling 
forces of his ideal government — charging it with such tre- 
mendous meaning and elevating it above human suffering, 
that martyrdom, though infamously aimed, came as a 
fitting crown to a life consecrated from the cradle to 
human liberty. Let us, each cherishing the traditions 
and honoring his fathers, build with reverend hands to 
the type of this simple but subHme life, in which all types 
are honored, and in our common glory as Americans there 
will be plenty and to spare for your forefathers and for 
mine. 

Dr. Talmage has drawn for you, with a master's hand, 
the picture of your returning armies. He has told you 
how, in the pomp and circumstance of war, they came back 
to you, marching with proud and victorious tread, reading 
their glory in a nation's eyes ! Will you bear with me 
while I tell you of another army that sought its home at 
the close of the late war — an army that marched home in 
defeat and not in victory — in pathos and not in splendor, but 
in glory that equaled yours, and to hearts as loving as ever 
welcomed heroes home ! Let me picture to you the foot- 
sore Confederate soldier, as, buttoning up in his faded gray 
jacket the parole which was to bear testimony to his chil- 
dren of his fidelity and faith, he turned his face southward 
from Appomattox in April, 1865. Think of him as ragged, 
half-starved, heavy-hearted, enfeebled by want and 
wounds. Having fought to exhaustion, he surrenders 
his gun, wrings the hands of his comrades in silence, and 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 261 

lifting his tear-stained and pallid face for the last time to 
the graves that dot old Virginia hills, pulls his gray cap 
over his brow and begins the slow and faithful journey. 
What does he find — let me ask you who went to your 
homes eager to find, in the welcome you had justly earned, 
full payment for four years' sacrifice — what does he find 
when, having followed the battle-stained cross against 
overwhelming odds, dreading death not half so much as 
surrender, he reaches the home he left so prosperous and 
beautiful. 

He finds his house in ruins, his farm devastated, his 
slaves free, his stock killed, his barns empty, his trade 
destroyed, his money worthless, his social system, feudal 
in its magnificence, swept away; his people without law 
or legal status, his comrades slain, and the burdens of 
others heavy on his shoulders. Crushed by defeat, his 
very traditions are gone. Without money, credit, employ- 
ment, material, or training, and, besides all this, confronted 
with the gravest problem that ever met human intelli- 
gence, — the estabhshing of a status for the vast body of 
his liberated slaves. 

What does he do — this hero in gray with a heart of gold ? 
Does he sit down in sullenness and despair? Not for a 
day. Surely God, who had stripped him of his prosperity, 
inspired him in his adversity. As ruin was never before 
so overwhelming, never was restoration swifter. The 
soldier stepped from the trenches into the furrow; horses 
that had charged Federal guns marched before the plow, 
and fields that ran red with human blood in April were 
green with the harvest in June; women reared in luxury 
cut up their dresses and made breeches for their husbands, 
and, with a patience and heroism that fit women always as 
a garment, gave their hands to work. There was little 
bitterness in all this. Cheerfulness and frankness pre- 
vailed. ... 

Never was nobler duty confided to human hands than 
the upHfting and upbuilding of the prostrate and bleeding 
South — misguided, perhaps, but beautiful in her suffering, 
and honest, brave and generous always. In the record of 



262 American Literature 

her social, industrial, and political illustration we await 
with confidence the verdict of the world. . . . 

The new South is enamored of her new work. Her 
soul is stirred with the breath of a new life. The light of 
a grander day is falling fair on her face. She is thrilUng 
with the consciousness of growing power and prosperity. 
As she stands upright, full-statured and equal among the 
people of the earth, breathing the keen air and looking 
out upon the expanded horizon, she understands that her 
emancipation came because through the inscrutable wis- 
dom of God her honest purpose was crossed, and her brave 
armies were beaten. 

This is said in no spirit of time-serving or apology. The 
South has nothing for which to apologize. She beheves 
that the late struggle between the States was war and 
not rebelHon; revolution and not conspiracy, and that her 
convictions were as honest as yours. I should be unjust 
to the dauntless spirit of the South and to my own con- 
victions if I did not make this plain in this presence. The 
South has nothing to take back. In my native town of 
Athens is a monument that crowns its central hill — a 
plain, white shaft. Deep cut into its shining side is a name 
dear to me above the names of men — that of a brave and 
simple man who died in brave and simple faith. Not for 
all the glories of New England, from Plymouth Rock all 
the way, would I exchange the heritage he left me in his 
soldier's death. To the foot of that shaft I shall send my 
children's children to reverence him who ennobled their 
name with his heroic blood. But, sir, speaking from the 
shadow of that memory, which I honor as I do nothing 
else on earth, I say that the cause in which he suffered and 
for which he gave his hfe was adjudged by higher and 
fuller wisdom than his or mine, and I am glad that the 
omniscient God held the balance of battle in His Almighty 
hand and that human slavery was swept forever from 
American soil, and the American Union was saved from 
the wreck of war. . . , 

II. Charles Eliot Norton (1827-1908), a graduate of Har- 
vard and for many years a professor at his alma mater, was 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 263 

a noted New England scholar. He devoted himself to art and 
literature, travelling and lecturing much both in Europe and 
America. 

The Building of the Cathedral 

(From Notes of Travel and Study in Italy, "Orvieto," March, 185&) 

The best Gothic architecture, indeed, wherever it may 
be found, affords evidence that the men who executed it 
were moved by a true fervor of religious faith. In build- 
ing a church, they did not forget that it was to be the 
house of God. No portion of their building was too 
minute, no portion too obscure, to be perfected with 
thorough and careful labor. The work was not let out by 
contract or taken up as a profitable job. The architect 
of a cathedral might hve all his life within the shadow of 
its rising walls, and die no richer than when he gave the 
sketch; but he was well repaid by the delight of seeing 
his design grow from an imagination to a reality, and by 
spending his days in the accepted service of the Lord. 

For the building of a cathedral, however, there needs 
not only a spirit of religious zeal among the workmen, but 
a faith no less ardent among the people for whom the 
church is designed. The enormous expense of construc- 
tion, an expense which for generations must be continued 
without intermission, is not to be met except by liberal 
and willing general contributions. Papal indulgences and 
the offerings of pilgrims may add something to the revenues, 
but the main cost of building must be borne by the com- 
munity over whose house-tops the cathedral is to rise and 
to extend its benign protection. 

Cathedrals were essentially expressions of the popular 
will and the popular faith. They were the work neither 
of ecclesiastics nor of ifeudal barons. They represent, in 
a measure, the decHne of feudahsm, and the prevalence of 
the democratic element in society. No sooner did a city 
achieve its freedom than its people began to take thought 
for a cathedral. Of all the arts, architecture is the most 
quickly responsive to the instincts and the desires of a 
people. And in the cathedrals, the popular beliefs, hopes. 



264 American Literature 

fears, fancies, and aspirations found expression, and were 
perpetuated in a language intelligible to all. The life of 
the Middle Ages is recorded on their walls. When the 
democratic element was subdued, as in Cologne by a 
Prince Bishop, or in Milan by a succession of tyrants, the 
cathedral was left unfinished. When, in the fifteenth 
century, all over Europe, the turbulent, but energetic 
fiber ties of the people were suppressed, the building of 
cathedrals ceased. 

12. Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1823-1911) was a 
younger member of the famous Cambridge group of writers 
which included Longfellow, Lowell, and Motley. Though he 
never attained the distinction of the writers named, he was the 
author of many charming essays and interesting biographies 
and histories. Ho was a bitter opponent of slavery and was 
colonel of the first colored regiment formed during the Civil 
War. 

BiMINI AND THE FOUNTAIN OF YoUTH 
(From Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic, Chapter XX) 

When Juan Ponce de Leon set forth from Porto Rico, 
March 13, 151 2, to seek the island of Bimini and its Foun- 
tain of Youth, he was moved by the love of adventure more 
than by that of juvenifity, for he was then but about fifty, 
a time when a cavafier of his day thought himself but in Ws 
prime. He looked indeed with perpetual sorrow . . . upon 
his kinsman Luis Ponce, once a renowned warrior, but on 
whom age had already, at sixty-five, laid its hand in earnest. 
... It was a vain hope of restored youth which had brought 
Don Luis from Spain to Porto Rico four years before; and, 
when Ponce de Leon had subdued that island, his older 
kinsman was forever beseeching him to carry his flag 
farther, and not stop till he had reached Bimini, and 
sought the Fountain of Youth. . . . 

"How know we," said his kinsman, "that there is any 
such place?" 

"All know it," said Luis. "Peter Martyr saith that 
there is in Bimini a continual spring of running water of 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 265 

such marvellous virtue that the water thereof, being drunk, 
perhaps with some diet, maketh old men young." And 
he adds that an Indian grievously oppressed with old age, 
moved with the fame of that fountain, and allured through 
the love of longer Ufe, went to an island near unto the 
country of Florida, to drink of the desired fountain, . . . and 
having well drunk and washed himself for many days with 
the appointed remedies, by them who kept the bath, he 
is reported to have brought home a manly strength, and 
to have used all manly exercises. "Let us therefore go 
thither," he cried, "and be like him." 

They set sail with three brigantines and found without 
difficulty the island of Bimini among the Lucayos (or 
Bahamas) islands; but when they searched for the Foun- 
tain of Youth they were pointed farther westward to 
Florida, where there was said to be a river of the same 
magic powers, called the Jordan. . . . 

They came at last to an inlet which led invitingly up 
among wooded banks and flowery valleys, and here the 
older Knight said, "Let us disembark here and strike in- 
land. My heart tells me that here at last will be found 
the Fountain of Youth." "Nonsense," said Juan, "our 
way lies by water." 

"Then leave me here with my men," said Luis. . . . 

A fierce discussion ended in Luis obtaining his wish, and 
being left for a fortnight of exploration; his kinsman prom- 
ising to come for him again at the mouth of the river St. 
John. . . . 

Sending the youngest of his men up to the top of a tree, 
Luis learned from him that they were on an island, after 
all, and this cheered him much, as making it more hkely that 
they should find the Fountain of Youth. He saw that the 
ground was pawed up, as if in a cattle-range, and that 
there was a path leading to huts. Taking this path, they 
met fifty Indian bowmen, who, whether large or not, 
seemed to them like giants. The Spaniards gave them beads 
and hawk-bells and each received in return an arrow, as 
a token of friendship. ... At the houses there were many 
fires, and the Spaniards would have been wholly comfort- 



266 American Literature 

able had they not thought it just possible that they were 
to be offered as a sacrifice. Still fearing this, they left 
their Indian friends after a few days and traversed the 
country, stopping at every spring or fountain to test its 
quaUty. Alas ! they all grew older and more worn in look, 
as time went on, and farther from the Fountain of Youth. 

After a time they came upon new tribes of Indians, and 
as they went farther from the coast these people seemed 
more and more friendly. They treated the white men as 
if come from Heaven, — brought them food, made them 
houses, carried every burden for them. ... If the visitors 
seemed offended, the natives were terrified, and apparently 
thought that they should die unless they had the favor of 
these wise and good men. . . . Wherever there was a 
fountain, the natives readily showed it, but apparently 
knew nothing of any miraculous gift; yet they themselves 
were in such fine physical condition, and seemed so young 
and so active, that it was as if they had already bathed in 
some magic spring. They had wonderful endurance of 
heat and cold, and such health that, when their bodies 
were pierced through and through by arrows, they would 
recover rapidly from their wounds. These things con- 
vinced the Spaniards that, even if the Indians would not 
disclose the source of all their bodily freshness, it must, 
at any rate. He somewhere in the neighborhood. Yet a 
little while, no doubt, and their visitors would reach it. 

It was a strange journey for these gray and care-worn 
men as they passed up the defiles and valleys along the 
St. John's River, beyond the spot where now spreads the 
city of Jacksonville, and even up to the woods and springs 
about Magnolia and Green Cove. Yellow jasmines trailed 
their festoons above their heads, wild roses grew at their 
feet; the air was filled with the aromatic odors of pine or 
sweet bay; the long gray moss hung from the Uve-oak 
branches; birds and butterflies of wonderful hues fluttered 
around them; and strange lizards crossed their paths, or 
looked with dull and blinking eyes from the branches. 
They came at last to one spring which widened into a 
natural basin, and which was so deHciously aromatic that 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 267 

Luis Ponce said, on emerging: "It is enough. I have 
bathed in the Fountain of Youth, and henceforth I am 
young." His companions tried it, and said the same: "The 
Fountain of Youth is found." 

No time must now be lost in proclaiming the great dis- 
covery. They obtained a boat from the natives, who 
wept at parting with the white strangers whom they had 
so loved. In this boat they proposed to reach the mouth 
of the St. John, meet Juan Ponce de Leon, and carry back 
the news to Spain. But one native, whose wife and chil- 
dren they had cured, and who had grown angry at their 
refusal to stay longer, went down to the water's edge, and, 
sending an arrow from his bow, transfixed Don Luis, so 
that even his fore-taste of the Fountain could not save 
him, and he died ere reaching the mouth of the river. If 
Don Luis ever reached what he sought, it was in another 
world. But those who have ever bathed in Green Cove 
Spring, near Magnolia, on the St. John's River, will be 
ready to testify that had he but stayed there longer, he would 
have found something to recall his visions of the Fountain 
of Youth. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

I. For Further Illustration 

Brewer, D. J.: The World^s Best Orations. 

Bryan, W. J.: The World's Famous Orations. 

Carpenter, G. R.: American Prose. 

Curtis, G. W.: The Public Duty of Educated Men. 

Denney, Joseph V.: American Public Addresses. 

Fiske, J.: American Political Ideas. 

Moore, F.: American Eloquence. 

Norton, C. E.: Notes of Travel and Study in Italy. 

O'Connell, Joseph Moore: Southern Orators — Speeches and Orations. 

Parkman, F.: The Oregon Trail. 

(See also General Bibliography, p. 3.) 

II. For Collateral Reading 

Andrews, Mary Raymond Shipman: The Perfect Tribute. (Lin- 
coln's Gettysburg Address.) 
Gerry, Margarita Spaulding: The Toy Shop. (A Lincoln Story.) 



268 American Literature 

Higginson, T. W. : Cheerful Yesterdays. 

Lowell, J. R.: Wendell Phillips. 

Markham, E.: Lincoln, the Great Commoner. 

POETRY 
Albert Pike, Theodore O'Hara, Henry Timrod, Paul 
Hamilton Hayne, and Sidney Lanier are, with the excep- 
tion of Poe, the best known of our Southern poets. 

I. Albert Pike (1809-1891), a soldier of the Confederate 
army, is chiefly remembered for his song Dixie and for his poem 
To the Mocking Bird. 

Dixie 

Southrons, hear your country call you ! 
Up ! lest worse than death befall you ! 

To arms ! to arms ! to arms ! in Dixie ! 
Lo ! the beacon fires are hghted, 
Let all hearts be now united ! 

To arms ! to arms ! to arms ! in Dixie ! 
Advance the flag of Dixie ! 
Hurrah ! hurrah ! 
For Dixie's land we'll take our stand, 
To hve or die for Dixie ! 
To arms ! to arms ! 

And conquer peace for Dixie ! 
To arms ! to arms ! 

And conquer peace for Dixie ! 

Hear the Northern thunders mutter ! 
Northern flags in South winds flutter ! 

To arms ! to arms ! to arms ! in Dixie ! 
Send them back your fierce defiance ! 
Stamp upon the accursed alliance ! 

To arms ! to arms ! to arms ! in Dixie ! 
Advance the flag of Dixie ! etc. 

Fear no danger ! shun no labor ! 
Lift up rifle, pike, and sabre ! 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 269 

To arms ! to arms ! to arms ! in Dixie ! 
Shoulder pressing close to shoulder ! 
Let the odds make each heart bolder ! 

To arms ! to arms ! to arms ! in Dixie ! 
Advance the flag of Dixie ! etc. 

How the South's great heart rejoices 
At your cannon's ringing voices ! 

To arms ! to arms ! to arms ! in Dixie ! 
For faith betrayed and pledges broken, 
Wrongs inflicted, insults spoken. 

To arms ! to arms ! to arms ! in Dixie ! 
Advance the flag of Dixie ! etc. 

Strong as lions, swift as eagles, 

Back to their kennels hunt these beagles ! 

To arms ! to arms ! to arms ! in Dixie ! 
Cut the unequal bonds asunder ! 
Let them hence each other plunder ! 

To arms ! to arms ! to arms ! in Dixie ! 
Advance the flag of Dixie ! etc. 

Swear upon your country's altar 
Never to submit or falter; 

To arms ! to arms ! to arms ! in Dixie ! 
Till the spoilers are defeated, 
Till the Lord's work is completed. 

To arms ! to arms ! to arms ! in Dixie ! 
Advance the flag of Dixie ! etc. 

Halt not till our federation 

Secures among earth's Powers its station ! 

To arms ! to arms ! to arms ! in Dixie ! 
Then at peace, and crowned with glory, 
Hear your children tell the story ! 

To arms ! to arms ! to arms ! in Dixie ! 
Advance the flag of Dixie ! etc. 

If the loved ones weep in sadness, 
Victory soon shall bring them gladness; 



270 American Literature 

To arms ! to arms ! to arms ! in Dixie ! 
Exultant pride soon banish sorrow; 
Smiles chase tears away to-morrow. 

To arms ! to arms ! to arms ! in Dixie ! 
Advance the flag of Dixie ! etc. 

2. Theodore O'Hara (1820-1867) was a Southerner who 
made his reputation as a writer through his poem The Bivouac 
of the Dead, which commemorates the Kentuckians who fell at 
the battle of Buena Vista. 

The Bivouac of the Dead 

• < The muffled drum's sad roll has beat 

The soldier's last tattoo; 
No more on life's parade shall meet 

That brave and faflen few. 
On Fame's eternal camping-ground 

Their silent tents are spread, 
And Glory guards, with solemn round, 

The bivouac of the dead. 

No rumor of the foe's advance 

Now swells upon the wind ; 
No troubled thought at midnight haunts 

Of loved ones left behind; 
No vision of the morrow's strife 

The warrior's dream alarms; 
No braying horn nor screaming fife 

At dawn shall call to arms. 

Their shivered swords are red with rust, 

Their plumed heads are bowed; 
Their haughty banner, trailed in dust, 

Is now their martial shroud. 
And plenteous funeral tears have washed 

The red stains from each brow. 
And the proud forms, by battle gashed, 

Are free from anguish now. 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 271 

The neighing troop, the flashing blade, 

The bugle's stirring blast, 
The charge, the dreadful cannonade, 

The din and shout, are past; 
Nor war's wild note, nor glory's peal 

Shall thrill with fierce dehght 
Those breasts that never more may feel 

The rapture of the fight. 

Like the fierce northern hurricane 

That sweeps this great plateau, 
Flushed with triumph yet to gain. 

Came down the serried foe. 
Who heard the thunder of the fray 

Break o'er the field beneath. 
Knew well the watchword of that day 

Was "Victory or death." 

Long has the doubtful conflict raged 

O'er all that stricken plain. 
For never fiercer fight had waged 

The vengeful blood of Spain ; 
And still the storm of battle blew, 

Still swelled the gory tide; 
Not long, our stout old chieftain knew, 

Such odds his strength could bide. 

'Twas in that hour his stern command 

Called to a martyr's grave 
The flower of his beloved band 

The nation's flag to save. 
By rivers of their fathers' gore 

His first-born laurels grew, 
And well he deemed the sons would pour 

Their lives for glory too. 

Full many a norther's breath has swept 

O'er Angostura's plain — 
And long the pitying sky has wept 

Above its mouldering slain. 



272 American Literature 

The raven's scream, or eagle's flight, 

Or shepherd's pensive lay, 
Alone awakes each sullen height 

That frowned o'er that dread fray. 

Sons of the Dark and Bloody Ground, 

Ye must not sluhiber there, 
Where stranger steps and tongues resound 

Along the heedless air. 
Your own proud land's heroic soil 

Shall be your fitter grave; 
She claims from War his richest spoil — 

The ashes of her brave. 

Thus 'neath their parent turf they rest, 

Far from the gory field; 
Borne to a Spartan mother's breast 

On many a bloody shield; 
The sunlight of their native sky 

Smiles sadly on them here. 
And kindred eyes and hearts watch by 

The heroes' sepulchre. 

Rest on, embalmed and sainted dead, 

Dear as the blood ye gave, 
No impious footstep here shall tread 

The herbage of your grave, 
Nor shall your glory be forgot 

While Fame her record keeps, 
Or Honor points the hallowed spot 

Where Valor proudly sleeps. 

Yon marble minstrel's voiceless stone 

In deathless song shall tell 
When many a vanished age hath flown, 

The story how ye fell; 
Nor wreck, nor change, nor winter's blight, 

Nor Time's remorseless doom, 
Shall dim one ray of glory's light 

That gilds your glorious tomb. 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 273 

Compare with this: CoUins's How Sleep the Brave; 
Tennyson's Balaclava. 

3. Henry Timrod (1829-1867) was a native of South Caro- 
lina. He attended the University of Georgia but could not 
finish his course because of poverty. During the Civil War he 
enlisted as a volunteer for the Confederacy. Before and after 
the war he devoted himself to Uterature, and he ranks to-day 
as one of the most considerable of our Southern poets. 

Ode 

Sleep, sweetly in your humble graves, 
Sleep, martyrs of a fallen cause; 

Though yet no marble column craves 
The pilgrim here to pause. 

In seeds of laurel in the earth 

The blossom of your fame is blown, 

And somewhere, waiting for its birth, 
The shaft is in the stone ! 

Meanwhile, behalf the tardy years 

Which keep in trust your storied tombs, 

Behold ! your sisters bring their tears 
And these memorial blooms. 

Small tributes ! but your shades will smile 
More proudly on these wreaths to-day, 

Than when some cannon-moulded pile 
Shall overlook this bay. 

Stoop, angels, hither from the skies ! 

There is no holier spot of ground 
Than where defeated valor lies, 

By mourning beauty crowned ! 

Whittier called this Ode "the noblest poem ever written 
by a Southern poet." 

Compare with this Collins's Ode How Sleep the Brave! 



274 American Literature 

4. Paul Hamilton Hayne (1830-1886) was also a South 
Carolinian. He belonged to a wealthy family and had the best 
advantages in education and association. He graduated from 
Charleston College and became identified with the leading 
literary circles of the city. Because of his health, he could not 
enUst in the Southern cause at the outbreak of the Civil War, 
but he wrote many stirring war lyrics to encourage his people. 

In the Wheat-Field 

When the lids of the virgin Dawn unclose, 

When the earth is fair and the heavens are calm, 
And the early breath of the wakening rose 

Floats on the air in balm, 
I stand breast-high in the pearly wheat 

That ripples and thrills to a sportive breeze, 
Borne over the field with its Hermes feet, 

And its subtle odor of southern seas; 
While out of the infinite azure deep 
The flashing wings of the swallows sweep. 
Buoyant and beautiful, wild and fleet, 
Over the waves of the whispering wheat. 

Aurora faints in the fulgent fire 

Of the Monarch of Morning's bright embrace. 
And the summer day climbs higher and higher 

Up the cerulean space; 
The pearl-tints fade from the radiant grain 

And the sportive breeze of the ocean dies. 
And soon in the noontide's soundless rain 

The fields seem graced by a million eyes; 
Each grain with a glance from its hdded fold 
As bright as a gnome's in his mine of gold, 
While the slumb'rous glamour of beam and heat 
Glides over and under the windless wheat. 

Yet the languid spirit of lazy Noon, 

With its minor and Morphean music rife. 

Is pulsing in low, voluptuous tune 
With summer's lust of Ufe. 



winters of the Mid- Century and After 275 

Hark ! to the droning of drowsy wings, 

To the honey-bees as they go and come, 
To the ''boomer" scarce rounding his sultry rings, 

The gnat's small horn and the beetle's hum; 
And hark to the locust ! — noon's one shrill song, 
Like the tingHng steel of an elfin gong, 
Grows lower through quavers of long retreat 
To swoon on the dazzled and distant wheat. 

Now day declines ! and his shafts of might 

Are sheathed in a quiver of opal haze; 
Still thro' the chastened, but magic light, 

What sunset grandeurs blaze ! 
For the sky, in its mellowed luster, seems 

Like the realm of a master poet's mind, — 
A shifting kingdom of splendid dreams, — 

With fuller and fairer truths behind; 
And the changeful colors that blend or part, 
Ebb like the tides of a living heart. 
As the splendor melts and the shadows meet, 
And the tresses of Twihght trail over the wheat. 

Compare with this Lanier's Corn. 

5. Sidney Lanier (1842-1881), the musician poet, is next 
to Poe the greatest of our Southern writers. He was born in 
Georgia and educated at Oglethorpe College. During the 
Civil War he entered the ranks of the Confederacy and was 
confined for five months in a Union prison. After the war he 
went to Baltimore, where he was engaged as flute-player by 
the Peabody Orchestra and later as lecturer on English Htera- 
ture by Johns Hopkins University. The musical quahty of his 
verse is remarkable, as is shown in the following selections. 

The Marshes of Glynn 

braided dusks of the oak and woven shades of the vine. 
While the riotous noonday sun of the June day long did 

shine 
Ye held me fast in your heart and I held you fast in mine; 
But now when the noon is no more, and riot is rest, 



276 American Literature 

And the sun is a-wait at the ponderous gate of the West, 
And the slant yellow beam down the wood-aisle doth seem 
Like a lane into heaven that leads from a dream, — 
Ay, now, when my soul all day hath drunken the soul of 

the oak, 
And my heart is at ease from men, and the wearisome 
sound of the stroke 
Of the scythe of time and the trowel of trade is low, 
And belief overmasters doubt, and I know that I know. 
And my spirit is grown to a lordly great compass within. 
That the length and the breadth and the sweep of the 

marshes of Glynn 
Will work me no fear like the fear they have wrought me 

of yore 
When length was fatigue, and when breadth was but bit- 
terness sore, 
And when terror and shrinking and dreary unnamable pain 
Drew over me out of the merciless miles of the plain, — 

Oh, now, unafraid, I am fain to face 

The vast, sweet visage of space. 
To the edge of the wood I am drawn, I am drawn, 
Where the gray beach ghmmering runs, as a belt of the dawn, 
For a mete and a mark 
To the forest — dark:— 
So: 
Affable live oak, leaning low, — 
Thus — with your favor — soft, with a reverent hand, 
(Not lightly touching your person. Lord of the land !) 
Bending your beauty aside, with a step I stand 
On the firm-packed sand. 

Free 
By a world of marsh, that borders a world of sea. 

Sinuous southward and sinuous northward the shimmer- 
ing band 
Of the sand-beach fastens the fringe of the marsh to the 
folds of the land. 
Inward and outward to northward and southward the 
beach-lines linger and curl 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After Til 

As a silver-wrought garment that clings to and follows the 

jBrm sweet Umbs of a girl. 
Vanishing, swerving, evermore curving again into sight, 
Softly the sand-beach wavers away to a dim gray looping 

of Hght. 
And what if behind me to westward the wall of the woods 

stands high ? 
The world Ues east: how ample the marsh and the sea and 

the sky ! 
A league and a league of marsh grass, waist-high, broad in 

the blade. 
Green, and all of a height, and unflecked with a light or a 

shade, 
Stretch leisurely off, in a pleasant plain, 
To the terminal blue of the main. 

Oh, what is abroad in the marsh and the terminal sea? 

Somehow my soul seems suddenly free 
From the weighing of fate and the sad discussion of sin, 
By the length and the breadth and the sweep of the marshes 
of Glynn. 

Ye marshes, how candid and simple and nothing-withhold- 
ing and free 
Ye publish yourselves to the sky and offer yourselves to 

the sea ! 
Tolerant plains, that suffer the sea and the rains and the sun, 
Ye spread and span Hke the catholic man who hath mightily 

won 
God out of knowledge and good out of infinite pain 
And sight out of bhndness and purity out of a stain. 

As the marsh-hen secretly builds on the watery sod, 
Behold I will build me a nest on the greatness of God : 
I will fly in the greatness of God as the marsh-hen flies 
In the freedom that fills all the space 'twixt the marsh and 

the skies: 
By so many roots as the marsh-grass sends in the sod 
I will heartily lay me a-hold on the greatness of God : 



278 American Literature 

Oh, like to the greatness of God is the greatness within 
The range of the marshes, the Hberal marshes of Glynn. 

And the sea lends large, as the marsh: lo, out of his plenty 

the sea 
Pours fast: full soon the time of the flood-tide must be: 
Look how the grace of the sea doth go 
About and about through the intricate channels that flow 
Here and there, 
Everywhere, 
Till his waters have flooded the uttermost creeks and the 

low-lying lanes, 
And the marsh is meshed with a milUon veins, 
That like as with rosy and silvery essences flow 
In the rose-and-silver evening glow. 
Farewell, my lord Sun ! 
The creeks overflow: a thousand ri\ailets run 
'Twixt the roots of the sod; the blades of the marsh grass 

stir; 
Passeth a hurrying sound of wings that westward whirr; 
Passeth, and all is still; and the currents cease to run; 
And the sea and the marsh are one. 

How still the plains of the waters be ! 
The tide is in his ecstasy; 
The tide is at its highest height: 
And it is night. 

And now from the Vast of the Lord will the waters of sleep 

Roll in on the souls of men, 

But who will reveal to our waking ken 

The forms that swim and the shapes that creep 

Under the waters of sleep ? 
And I would I could know what swimmeth below when the 

tide comes in 
On the length and the breadth of the marvellous marshes 

of Glynn. 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 279 



Song of the Chattahoochee 

Out of the hills of Habersham. 

Down the valleys of Hall, 
I hurry amain to reach the plain, 
Run the rapid and leap the fall, 
SpHt at the rock and together again, 
Accept my bed, or narrow or wide, 
And flee from folly on every side 
With a lover's pain to attain the plain 

Far from the hills of Habersham, 

Far from the valleys of Hall. 

All down the hills of Habersham, 

All through the valleys of Hall, 
The rushes cried Abide, abide, 
The wilful water weeds held me thrall. 
The laving laurels turned my tide. 
The ferns and the fondhng grass said Stay, 
The dewberry dipped for to work delay, 
And the Kttle reeds sighed Abide, abide, 

Here in the hills of Habersham, 

Here in the valleys of Hall. 

High o'er the hills of Habersham, 

Veiling the valleys of Hall, 
The hickory told me manifold 
Fair tales of shade, the poplar tall 
Wrought me her shadowy self to hold, 
The chestnut, the oak, the walnut, the pine, 
Overleaning, with flickering meaning and sign, 
Said, Pass not, so cold, these manifold 

Deep shades of the hills of Habersham, 

These glades in the valleys of Hall. 

And oft in the hills of Habersham, 
And oft in the valleys of Hall, 
The white quartz shone, and the smooth brook-stone 



280 American Literature 

Did bar me of passage with friendly brawl, 

And many a luminous jewel lone 

— Crystals clear or a-cloud with mist, 

Ruby, garnet, and amethyst — 

Made lures with the lights of streaming stone 
In the clefts of the hills of Habersham, 
In the beds of the valleys of Hall. 

But oh, not the hills of Habersham. 

And, oh, not the valleys of Hall 
Avail: I am fain for to water the plain. 
Downward the voices of Duty call — 
Downward, to toil and be mixed with the main, 
The dry fields burn, and the mills are to turn, 
And a myriad flowers mortally yearn, 
And the lordly main from beyond the plain 

Calls o'er the hills of Habersham, 

Calls through the valleys of Hall. 

Compare with the last poem above : Tennyson's Brook; 
Southey's The Cataract of Lodore ; Hsiyne's Meadow Brook. 

6. Stephen C. Foster (1826-1864) was the author of the 
popular Old Folks at Home and My Old Kentucky Home. 

Old Folks at Home 

Way down upon de Swanee Ribber 

Far, far away, 
Dere's wha my heart is turning ebber, 

Dere's wha de old folks stay. 
All up and down de whole creation 

Sadly I roam. 
Still longing for de old plantation, 

And for de old folks at home. 

All de world am sad and dreary, 

Ebery where I roam; 
Oh, darkeys, how my heart grows weary, 

Far from de old folks at home ! 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 281 

All round de little farm I wandered 

When I was young, 
Den many happy days I squandered, 

Many de songs I sung, 
When I was playing wid my brudder 

Happy was I; 
Oh, take me to my kind old mudder ! 

Dere let me live and die. 

One little hut among de bushes, 

One dat I love, 
Still sadly to my memory rushes, 

No matter where I rove. 
When will I see de bees a-humming 

All round de comb ? 
When will I hear de banjo tumming, 

Down in my good old home ? 

, All de world am sad and dreary, 

Ebery where I roam. 
Oh, darkeys, how my heart grows weary, 
Far from de old folks at home ! 

7. Alice Gary (1820-1871) composed some beautiful lyrics. 
Horace Greeley said of her: "I do not believe that she ever 
wrote one line that she did not believe to be true. She con- 
centrated all her powers and energies on the task of making 
truth more palpable and good, more acceptable to hungry wait- 
ing souls." 

Balder's Wife 

Her casement Hke a watchful eye 

From the face of the wall looks down, 
Lashed round with ivy vines so dry. 

And with ivy leaves so brown. 
Her golden head in her lily hand 

Like a star in the spray o' the sea. 
And wearily rocking to and fro, 
She sings so sweet and she sings so low 

To the little babe on her knee. 



282 American Literature 

But let her sing what tune she may, 
Never so light and never so gay, 
It sHps and sHdes and dies away 
To the moan of the willow water. , 

Like some bright honey-hearted rose 

That the wild wind rudely mocks, 
She blooms from the dawn to the day's sweet close 

Hemmed in with a world of rocks. 
The livelong night she does not stir. 

But keeps at her casement lorn, 
And the skirts of the darkness shine with her 

As they shine with the light o' the morn, 
And all who pass may hear her lay, 
But let it be what tune it may, 
It slips and slides and dies away 

To the moan of the willow water. 

And there, within that one-eyed tower. 

Lashed round with the ivy brown, 
She droops Hke some unpitied flower 

That the rain-fall washes down: 
The damp o' the dew in her golden hair, 

Her cheek like the spray o' the sea, 
And wearily rocking to and fro, 
She sings so sweet and she sings so low 

To the little babe on her knee. 
But let her sing what tune she may, 
Never so glad and never so gay. 
It slips and sHdes and dies away 

To the moan of the willow water. 

8. Phcebe Gary (1824-1871), the younger sister of Alice, is 
remembered for the familiar hymn which follows. 

Nearer Home 

One sweetly solemn thought 

Comes to me o'er and o'er; 
I am nearer home to-day 

Than I ever have been before: 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 283 

Nearer my Father's house, 
Where the many mansions be; 

Nearer the great white throne, 
Nearer the crystal sea; 

Nearer the bound of life, 

Where we lay our burdens down; 

Nearer leaving the cross, 
Nearer gaining the crown ! 

But lying darkly between, 

Winding down through the night, 

Is the silent, unknown stream, 
That leads at last to the light. 

Closer and closer my steps 

Come to the dread abysm: 
Closer Death to my lips 

Presses the awful chrism. 

Oh, if my mortal feet 
Have almost gained the brink; 

If it be I am nearer home 
Even to-day than I think; 

Father, perfect my trust; 

Let my spirit feel in death, 
That her feet are firmly set 

On the rock of a living faith ! 

9. Thomas Buchanan Read (1822-1872) was a Pennsyl- 
ania artist and a poet of no mean ability. His most famous 
loem is the battle song Sheridan's Ride, which follows. 

Sheridan's Ride 



Up from the South, at break of day. 
Bringing to Winchester fresh dismay. 
The affrighted air with a shudder bore. 
Like a herald in haste, to a chieftain's door 



284 American Literature 

The terrible grumble, and rumble, and roar 
Telling the battle was on once more. 
And Sheridan twenty miles away. 



And wider still those billows of war 

Thundered along the horizon's bar; 

And louder yet into Winchester rolled 

The roar of that red sea uncontrolled 

Making the blood of the listener cold 

As he thought of the stake in that fiery fray, 

With Sheridan twenty miles away. 

3- 
But there is a road from Winchester town, 
A good broad highway leading down; 
And there through the flush of the morning light, 
A steed as black as the steeds of night, 
Was seen to pass with eagle flight. 
As if he knew the terrible need, 
He stretched away with his utmost speed; 
Hills rose and fell, — but his heart was gay 
With Sheridan fifteen miles away. 

4. 
Still sprang from those swift hoofs, thundering south 
The dust Hke smoke from the cannon's mouth 
Or the trail of a comet, sweeping faster and faster, 
Foreboding to traitors the doom of disaster. 
The heart of the steed and the heart of the master 
Were beating Hke prisoners assaulting the walls 
Impatient to be where the battlefield calls; 
Every nerve of the charger was strained to full play 
With Sheridan only ten miles away. 

5- 
Under his spurning feet the road 
Like an arrowy Alpine river flowed, 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 285 

And the landscape sped away behind 

Like an ocean flying before the wind; 

And the steed, Uke a bark fed with furnace fire 

Swept on with his wild eyes full of ire, 

But lo ! he is nearing his heart's desire, 

He is snuffing the smoke of the roaring fray, 

With Sheridan only five miles away. 



The first that the general saw were the groups 

Of stragglers, and then the retreating troops; 

What was done, — what to do, — a glance told him both, 

And, striking his spurs with a terrible oath. 

He dashed down the fine mid a storm of huzzas, 

And the wave of retreat checked its course there because 

The sight of the master compelled it to pause, 

With foam and with dust the black charger was gray; 

By the flash of his eye and the red nostrils' play 

He seemed to the whole great army to say, 

"I have brought you Sheridan all the way 

From Winchester, down to save the day !" 

7. 

Hurrah ! hurrah for Sheridan ! 
Hurrah ! hurrah for horse and man ! 
And when their statues are placed on high, 
Under the dome of the Union sky, — 
The American soldier's Temple of Fame, — 
Then with the glorious General's name 
Be it said in letters both bold and bright: 
"Here is the steed that saved the day 
By carrying Sheridan into the fight. 
From Winchester — twenty miles away !" 

10. Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) lived a life of seclusion 
: Amherst, Massachusetts, where she wrote some remarkable 
Dcms which are in a class by themselves. They were not pub- 
shed until 1890, four years after her death. (See Bibliography, 
ige 294, for suggested readings.) 



286 American Literature 

II. Edward Rowland Sill (i 841-1887) was a native of New 

England. He went to California for his health, where he became 
professor of English literature in the University of California. 
He "exhibited a notable talent in his poetry, which shows rich 
gifts of spiritual insight and power," says Professor Simonds. 

The Fool's Prayer 

The royal feast was done; the King 
Sought some new sport to banish care, 

And to his jester cried: "Sir Fool, 

Kneel now, and make for us a prayer !" 

The jester doflfed his cap and bells, 
And stood the mocking court before; 

They could not see the bitter smile 
Behind the painted grin he wore. 

He bowed his head, and bent his knee 
Upon the monarch's silken stool; 

His pleading voice arose: "O Lord, 
Be merciful to me, a fool ! 

"No pity, Lord, could change the heart 
From red with wrong to white as wool: 

The rod must heal the sin; but Lord, 
Be merciful to me, a fool ! 

" 'Tis not by guilt the onward sweep 
Of truth and right, O Lord, we stay; 

'Tis by our follies that so long 
We hold the earth from heaven away. 

"These clumsy feet, still in the mire, 
Go crushing blossoms without end; 

These hard, well-meaning hands we thrust 
Among the heart-strings of a friend. 

"The ill-timed truth we might have kept — 
Who knows how sharp it pierced and stung ! 



W^riters of the Mid- Century and After 287 

The word we had not sense to say — 
Who knows how grandly it had rung ! 

"Our faults no tenderness should ask, 
The chastening stripes must cleanse them all; 

But for our blunders — ^oh, in shame 
Before the eyes of heaven we fall. 

"Earth bears no balsam for mistakes; 

Men crown the knave, and scourge the tool 
That did his will; but Thou, Lord, 

Be merciful to me, a fool." 

The room was hushed; in silence rose 
The King, and sought his gardens cool, 

And walked apart, and murmured low, 
"Be merciful to me, a fool !" 

12. Emma Lazarus (1849-1887) was a Jewess of New York 
City who wrote some remarkable poems protesting against the 
persecution of her race in Russia. She had a message to de- 
liver to her people, but unhappily it was given only in part, 
because of her untimely death. (See Bibliography, page 294, 
for suggested readings.) 

13. Walt Whitman (1819-1892), the most unconventional 
of all our poets both in choice of theme and form of expression, 
aspired to be the poet of Democracy. He was born on Long 
Island, was practically self-educated, became a teacher, and 
later a journalist. During the Civil War he went to Wash- 
ington where he served as nurse in the hospitals. His latter 
days were spent in Camden, New Jersey, where he was known 
as " the good gray poet of Camden Town." He is sometimes 
called " the poet of epithets, phrases. Hues." " His message was 
unique, his manner of giving it bizarre," yet he was a real force 
in literature and has had much influence. Mr. Edmund Gosse 
calls him a poet in solution. The following extracts show not 
only his eccentricities of form but his sincerity of purpose. 
In Captain! My Captain! and some other poems he dem- 
onstrates that it was possible for him to follow regular form 
if he so willed. 



288 American Literature 



Myself 

(From The Song of Myself) 

I celebrate myself, and sing myself, 

And what I assume you shall assume, 

For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. 

I loaf and invite my soul, 

I lean and loaf at my ease observing a spear of summer grass. 

My tongue, every atom of my blood, formed from this 

soil, this air, 
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and 

their parents the same, 
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin, 
Hoping to cease not till death. 

Creeds and schools in abeyance. 

Retiring back awhile sufficed at what they are, but never 

forgotten, 
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard, 
Nature without check with original energy. 

O Captain! My Captain! 

O Captain ! m.y Captain ! our fearful trip is done. 

The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is 

won, 
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, 
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and dar- 
ing; 
But O heart ! heart ! heart 1 
O the bleeding drops of red, 
Where on the deck my Captain lies, 
Fallen cold and dead. 

O Captain ! my Captain ! rise up and hear the bells; 
Rise up — for you the flag is flung — for you the bugle trills, 
For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths — for you the 
shores acrowding, 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 289 

For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turn- 
ing; 
Here Captain ! dear father ! 
This arm beneath your head ! 

It is some dream that on the deck 
You've fallen cold and dead. 

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still, 
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will, 
The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed and 

done, 
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won; 
Exult O shores, and ring O bells ! 
But I with mournful tread, 

Walk the deck my Captain lies, 
Fallen cold and dead. 

To THE Man-of- War-Bird 

Thou who hast slept all night upon the storm, 

Waking renewed on thy prodigious pinions 

(Burst the wild storm ? above it thou ascendedst. 

And rested on the sky, thy slave that cradled thee), 

Now a blue point, far, far in heaven floating, 

As to the light emerging here on deck I watch thee 

(Myself a speck, a point on the world's floating vast). 

Far, far at sea. 

After the night's fierce drifts have strewn the shore with 

wrecks, 
With re-appearing day as now so happy and serene, 
The rosy and elastic dawn, the flashing sun, 
The limpid spread of air cefulean. 
Thou also re-appearest. 

Thou born to match the gale (thou art all wings). 
To cope with heaven and earth and sea and hurricane, 
Thou ship of air that never furl'st thy sails. 
Days, even weeks, un tired and onward, through spaces, 
realms gyrating, 



290 American Literature 

At dusk that look'st on Senegal, at morn America, 
That sport'st amid the hghtning-flash and thunder-cloud, 
In them, in thy experiences, hadst thou my soul. 
What joys ! what joys were thine ! 

14. Richard Henry Stoddard (1825-1903) belonged to the 
New York group of writers of the early days. Here he was 
for a long time engaged in editorial work. He was a frequent 
contributor to the leading magazines and a poet of great talent. 

Burial of Lincoln 

Peace ! Let the long procession come. 
For hark ! — the mournful, muffled drum, 

The trumpet's wail afar; 

And see ! the awful car ! 

Peace ! Let the sad procession go, 
While cannons boom, and bells toll slow; 

And go, thou sacred car. 

Bearing our woe afar ! 

Go, darkly borne, from State to State, 
Whose loyal, sorrowing cities wait 

To honor, all they can, 

The dust of that good man ! 

Go, grandly borne, with such a train 
As greatest Kings might die to gain: 

The just, the wise, the brave 

Attend thee to the grave ! 

And you, the soldiers of our wars, 
Bronzed veterans, grim with noble scars. 
Salute him once again. 
Your late commander, — slain I 

Yes, let your tears indignant fall, 
But leave your muskets on the wall; 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 291 

Your country needs you now 
Beside the forge, the plow ! 



So sweetly, sadly, sternly goes 
The fallen to his last repose, 

Beneath no mighty dome, 

But in his modest home, 

The churchyard where his children rest, 
The quiet spot that suits him best, 

There shall his grave be made. 

And there his bones be laid ! 

And there his countrymen shall come, 
With memory proud, with pity dumb, 

And strangers, far and near. 

For many and many a year ! 

For many a year and many an age, 
While History on her ample page 

The virtues shall enroll 

Of that paternal soul ! 

15. Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910) was a well-known lec- 
turer and reformer. She became famous through her war-song, 
the Battle-Hymn of the Republic, which was published in 1861. 

Battle-Hymn of the Republic 

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord: 
He is trampKng out the vintage where the grapes of wrath 

are stored; 
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift 

sword; 
His truth is marching on. 

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling 
camps; 



292 American Literature 

They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and 

damps; 
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring 

lamps. 
His day is marching on. 

I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel: 
"As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall 

deal; 
Let the Hero born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel, 
Since God is marching on." 

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call 

retreat; 
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat: 
Oh ! be swift my soul, to answer Him ! be jubilant, my feet ! 
Our God is marching on. 

In the beauty of the hlies Christ was born across the sea, 
With the glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me: 
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, 
While God is marching on. 



i6. John Hay (1838-1905), statesman and diplomat, was 
a graduate of Brown University. He rendered valuable ser- 
vices to his country as Ambassador to England and as Secretary 
of State. His Pike County Ballads gave him wide popularity 
as a poet. The following poem is illustrative. 



Jim Bludso, of the " Prairie Belle 
(From Pike County Ballads) 

Wall, no ! I can't tell whar he lives, 
Because he don't live, you see; 

Leastways, he's got out of the habit 
Of livin' like you and me. 



Writers of the Mid- Century and After 293 

Whar have you been for the last three year 

That you haven't heard folks tell 
How Jimmy Bludso passed in his checks 

The night of the Prairie Belle ? 

He weren't no saint, — them engineers 

Is all pretty much ahke, — 
One wife in Natchez-under-the-Hill 

And another one here, in Pike; 
A keerless man in his talk was Jim, 

And an awkward hand in a row. 
But he never flunked, and he never lied, — 

I reckon he never knowed how. 

And this was all the religion he had, — 

To treat his engine well; 
Never be passed on the river; 

To mind the pilot's bell; 
And if ever the Prairie Belle took fire, — 

A thousand times he swore, 
He'd hold her nozzle agin the bank 

Till the last soul got ashore. 

All boats has their day on the Mississip, 

And her day come at last, — 
The Movastar was a better boat, 

But the Belle she wouldn't be passed. 
And so she come tearin' along that night — 

The oldest craft on the Une — 
With a nigger squat on her safety-valve, 

And her furnace crammed, rosin and pine. 

The fire bust out as she clared the bar. 

And burnt a hole in the night, 
And quick as a flash she turned, and made 

For that wilier-bank on the right. 
There was runnin' and cursin', but Jim yelled out, 

Over all the infernal roar : 



294 American Literature 

"I'll hold her nozzle agin the bank 
Till the last galoot's ashore." 

Through the hot, black breath of the burnin' boat 

Jim Bludso's voice was heard, 
And they all had trust in his cussedness, 

And knowed he would keep his word. 
And, sure's you're born, they all got off 

Afore the smokestacks fell, — 
And Bludso's ghost went up alone 

In the smoke of the Prairie Belle. 

He weren't no saint, — but at jedgment 

I'd run my chance with Jim, 
'Longside of some pious gentlemen 

That wouldn't shook hands with him. 
He seen his duty, a dead-sure thing, — 

And went for it thar and then; 
And Christ ain't a-goin' to be too hard 

On a man that died for men. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 
I. For Further Illustration 

Dickinson, E.: Mortiing. 

A Book. With Flovrers. 

Called Back. 
Hay, John: Pi^i County Ballads. 
Lanier, S.: Hymns of the Marshes. 

The Symphony. 

Corn. 
Lazarus, E.: The Banner of the Jew. 

The New Ezekiel. 
Scudder, H. E.: American Poetry. 
Sill, E. R.: Before Sunrise in Winter. 
Stoddard, R. H.: Wind and Rain. 

The Country Life. 

The Flight of Youth. 
Weber, W. F.: Selections from the Southern Poets. (Macmillan 

Pocket Classics.) 



Writers of the Mid- Centui-y and After 295 

Whitman, W. : When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed. 
Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking. 
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry. 

II. For Collateral Reading 

Gosse, E.: Walt Whitman. (In Critical Kit-Cats.) 

Link, S. A.: Pioneers of Southern Literature. 

Mims, E. : Life of Sidney Lanier. 

Pickett, La Salle Corbett: Literary Hearthstones of Dixie. 



CHAPTER V 

LATER AND PRESENT-DAY WRITERS 
/. Prose — Fiction 

The death of the last of the great men who had made 
New England — and through New England, America — a 
factor to be reckoned with in the hterary world, ushers in 
the day of our literary expansion. Though Mr. Brander 
Matthews tells us that New York City has once more 
become the literary centre of America, it is in no sense the 
literary centre as it was in the days of Irving, or as Cam- 
bridge and Boston were in the days of Longfellow and 
Lowell. To-day there are small local literary centres all 
over the United States. We find them scattered through 
the Middle West from one university town to another; 
from the Pacific coast to the Lake region; from the lakes 
to the Atlantic coast. 

The following selection of representative writers shows 
how impossible it would be for any one section to hold a 
monopoly of our literary output to-day. The choice is 
typical but by no means exhaustive. 

"1. S. Weir Mitchell (1830-1914) was a physician of Phila- 
delphia who became well known for his novels, the best of 
which is Hugh Wynne. "This," declares Professor Barrett 
Wendell, "is so accurate and vivid a fiction aS to have the 
value of an authority." 

Hugh's School Days. 

(From Hugh Wynne: Free Quaker, Chapter II) 

The day I went to school for the first time is very clear 
in my memory. I can see myself, a stout little fellow 
296 



Later and Present- Day Writers 297 

about eight years old, clad in gray homespun, with breeches, 
low shoes, and a low, flat beaver hat. I can hear my mother 
say, "Here are two big apples for thy master," it being 
the custom so to propitiate pedagogues. Often afterward 
I took eggs in a Httle basket, or flowers, and others did the 
like. 

"Now run! run!" she cried, "and be a good boy; run, 
or thou wilt be late." And she clapped her hands as I 
sped away, now and then looking back over my shoulder. 

I remember as well my return home to this solid house, 
this first day of my going to school. One is apt to as- 
sociate events with persons, and my mother stood leaning 
on the half-door as I came running back. She was some 
little reassured to see me smiling, for, to tell the truth, I 
had been mightily scared at my new venture. . . . 

As I came she set those large, childhke eyes on me, and 
opening the lower half-door, cried out: 

"I could scarce wait for thee ! I wish I could have gone 
with thee, Hugh; and was it dreadful? Come, let us see 
thy little book. And did they praise thy reading? Didst 
thou tell them I taught thee? There are girls, I hear," 
and so on — a way she had of asking many questions with- 
out waiting for a reply. 

As we chatted we passed through the hall, where tall 
mahogany chairs stood dark against the white-washed 
walls, such as were in all the rooms. Joyous at escape 
from school, and its confinement of three long, weary hours, 
from eight to eleven, I dropped my mother's hand, and, 
running a Httle, sKd down the long entry over the thinly 
sanded floor, and then sHpping, came down with a rueful 
countenance, as nature, foreseeing results, meant that a 
boy should descend when his legs fail him. My mother 
sat down on a settle, and spread out both palms toward 
me, laughing, and crying out: 

"So near are joy and grief, my friends, in this world of 
sorrow." 

This was said so exactly with the voice and manner of 
a famous preacher of our Meeting that even I, a lad then 
of only eight years, recognised the imitation. Indeed, she 



298 Atnerican Literature 

was wonderful at this trick of mimicry, a thing most odious 
to Friends. As I smiled, hearing her, I was aware of my 
father in the open doorway of the sitting-room, tall, strong, 
with much iron-gray hair. Within I saw several Friends, 
large rosy men in drab, with horn buttons and straight 
collars, their stout legs clad in dark silk hose, without 
the paste or silver buckles then in use. All wore broad- 
brimmed, low beavers, and their gold-headed canes rested 
between their knees. 

My father said to me, in his sharp way, "Take thy noise 
out into the orchard. The child disturbs us, wife. Thou 
shouldst know better. A committee of overseers is with 
me." He disHked the name Marie, and was never heard 
to use it, nor even its Enghsh equivalent. 

Upon this the dear lady murmured, "Let us fly, Hugh," 
and she ran on tiptoe along the hall with me, while my 
father closed the door. "Come," she added, "and see the 
floor. I am proud of it. We have friends to eat dinner 
with us at two." . . . 

And thus began my life at school, to which I went twice 
a day, my father not approving of the plan of three ses- 
sions a day, which was common, nor, for some reason, I 
know not what, of schools kept by Friends. So it was 
that I set out before eight, and went again from two to 
four. ... 

I have observed that teachers are often eccentric, and 
surely David Dove was no exception, nor do I now know 
why so odd a person was chosen by many for the care 
of youth. I fancy my mother had to do with the choice 
in my case, and was influenced by the fact that Dove 
rarely used the birch, but had a queer fancy for setting 
culprits on a stool, with the birch switch stuck in the back 
of the jacket, so as to stand up behind the head. I hated 
this, and would rather have been birched secundum artem 
than to have seen the girls giggling at me. I changed my 
opinion later. . . . 

Our school life with Dove ended after four years in 
an odd fashion. I was then about twelve, and had become 
a vigorous, daring boy, with, as it now seems to me, some- 



Later and Present- Day Writers 299 

thing of the fortunate gaiety of my mother. Other lads 
thought it singular that in peril I became strangely viva- 
cious; but underneath I had a share of the relentless firm- 
ness of my father, and of his vast dislike of failure, and of 
his love of truth. I have often thought that the father in 
me saved me from the consequences of so much of my 
mother's gentler nature as might have done me harm in 
the rude conflicts of Kfe. 

David Dove, among other odd ways, devised a plan for 
punishing the unpunctual which had considerable success. 
One day, when I had far overstayed the hour of eight, by 
reason of having climbed into Friend Pemberton's gardens, 
where I was tempted by many green apples, I was met 
by four older boys. One had a lantern, which, with much 
laughter, he tied about my neck, and one, marching be- 
fore, rang a bell. I had seen this queer punishment fall 
on others, and certainly the amusement shown by people 
in the streets would not have hurt me compared with the 
advantage of pockets full of apples, had I not of a sudden 
seen my father, who usually breakfasted at six, and was 
at his warehouse by seven. He looked at me composedly, 
but went past us saying nothing. 

On my return about eleven, he unluckily met me in the 
garden, for I had gone the back way in order to hide my 
apples. I had an unpleasant half-hour, despite my mother's 
tears, and was sent at once to confess to Friend James 
Pemberton. The good man said I was a naughty boy, 
but must come later when the apples were red ripe, and I 
should take all I wanted, and I might fetch with me an- 
other boy, or even two. I never forgot this, and did him 
some good turns in after-years, and right gladly too. 

In my own mind I associated David Dove with this 
painful interview with my father. I disliked him the 
more because, when the procession entered the school, a 
little girl for whom Warder and I had a boy friendship, in 
place of laughing, as did the rest, for some reason began 
to cry. This angered the master, who had the lack of self- 
control often seen in eccentric people. He asked why she 
cried, and on her sobbing out that it was because she was 



300 American Literature 

sorry for me, he bade her take off her stays. These being 
stiff, and worn outside the gown, would have made the 
punishment of the birch on the shoulders of trifling mo- 
ment. 

As it was usual to whip girls at school, the little maid 
said nothing, but did as she was bid, taking a sharp birch- 
ing without a cry. Meanwhile I sat with my head in my 
hands, and my fingers in my ears lest I should hear her 
weeping. After school that evening, when all but Warder 
and I had wandered home, I wrote on the outside wall of the 
school-house with chalk, "David Dove Is A Cruel Beast," 
and went away somewhat better contented. 

Now, with all his seeming dislike to use the rod, David 
had turns of severity, and then he was far more brutal 
than any man I have ever known. Therefore it did not 
surprise us next morning that the earher scholars were 
looking with wonder and alarm at the sentence on the wall, 
when Dove, appearing behind us, ordered us to enter at 
once. 

Going to his desk, he put on his spectacles, which then 
were worn astride of the nose. In a minute he set on be- 
low them a second pair, and this we knew to be a signal 
of coming violence. Then he stood up, and asked who had 
written the opprobrious epithet on the wall. As no one 
replied, he asked several in turn, but luckily chose the 
girls, thinking, perhaps, that they would weakly betray 
the sinner. Soon he lost patience, and cried out he would 
give a king's pound to know. 

When he had said this over and over, I began to reflect 
that, if he had any real idea of doing as he promised, a 
pound was a great sum, and to consider what might be 
done with it in the way of marbles of Amsterdam, tops, 
and of certain much-desired books, for now this latter 
temptation was upon me, as it has been ever since. As I 
sat, and Dove thundered, I remembered how, when one 
Stacy, with an oath, assured my father that his word was 
as good as his bond, my parent said dryly that this equality 
left him free to choose, and he would prefer his bond. I 
saw no way to what was for me the mysterious security of 



Later and Present- Day Writers 301 

a bond, but I did conceive of some need to stiffen the 
promise Dove had made before I faced the penalty. 

Upon this I held up a hand, and the master cried, "What 
is it?" 

I said, "Master, if a boy should tell thee wouldst thou 
surely give a pound?" 

At this a lad called "Shame !" thinking I was a telltale. 

When Dove called silence and renewed his pledge, I, 
overbold, said, "Master, I did it, and now wilt thou please 
to give me a pound — a king's pound?" 

"I will give thee a pounding!" he roared; and upon this 
came down from his raised form, and gave me a beating so 
terrible and cruel that at last the girls cried aloud, and he 
let me drop on the floor, sore and angry. I lay still awhile, 
and then went to my seat. As I bent over my desk, it was 
rather the sense that I had been wronged, than the pain of 
the blows, which troubled me. 

After school, refusing speech to any, I walked home, 
and ministered to my poor little bruised body as I best 
could. Now this being a Saturday, and therefore a half- 
hoHday, I ate at two with my father and mother. 

Presently my father, detecting my uneasy movements, 
said, "Hast thou been birched to-day, and for what bad- 
ness?" 

Upon this my mother said softly, "What is it, my son? 
Have no fear." And this gentleness being too much for 
me, I fell to tears, and blurted out all my httle tragedy. 

As I ended, my father rose, very angry, and cried out, 
"Come this way!" But my mother caught me, saying, 
"No! no! Look, John! see his poor neck and his wrist! 
What a brute ! I tell thee, thou shalt not ! it were a sin. 
Leave him to me," and she thrust me behind her as if for 
safety. 

To my surprise, he said, "As thou wilt," and my mother 
hurried me away. We had a grave, sweet talk, and there 
it ended for a time. I learned that, after all, the woman's 
was the stronger will. I was put to bed and declared to 
have a fever, and given sulphur and treacle, and kept out 
of the paternal paths for a mournful day of enforced rest. 



302 American Literature 

On the Monday following I went to school as usual, 
but not without fear of Dove. When we were all busy, 
about ten o'clock, I was amazed to hear my father's voice. 
He stood before the desk, and addressed Master Dove in 
a loud voice, meaning, I suppose, to be heard by all of us. 

"David Dove," he said, "my son hath been guilty of 
disrespect to thee, and to thy office. I do not say he has 
lied, for it is my behef that thou art truly an unjust and 
cruel beast. As for his sin, he has suffered enough [I felt 
glad of this final opinion] ; but a bargain was made. He, 
on his part, for a consideration of one pound sterling, was 
to tell thee who wrote certain words. He has paid thee 
and thou hast taken interest out of his skin. Indeed, 
Friend Shylock, I think he weighs less by a pound. Thou 
wilt give him his pound, Master David." 

Upon this a little maid near by smiled at me, and Warder 
punched me in the ribs. Master Dove was silent a mo- 
ment, and then answered that there was no law to make 
him pay, and that he had spoken lightly, as one might say, 
*'I would give this or that to know." But my father re- 
pHed at once: 

"The boy trusted thee, and was as good as his word. 
I advise thee to pay. As thou art Master to punish boys, 
so will I, David, use thy birch on thee at need, and trust 
to the great Master to reckon with me if I am wrong." 

All this he said so fiercely that I trembled with joy, 
and hoped that Dove would deny him ; but, in place of this, 
he muttered something about Meeting and Friends, and 
meanwhile searched his pockets and brought out a guinea. 
This my father dropped into his breeches pocket, saying, 
"The shilHng will be for interest" (a guinea being a shil- 
ling over a king's pound). After this, turning to me, he 
said, "Come with me, Hugh," and went out of the school- 
house, I following after, very well pleased, and thinking/ 
of my guinea. 

2. William Dean Ho wells (1837- ) is generally con- 
sidered the foremost American novelist of our generation. He 
was born in Ohio, never went to college, but got valuable train- 



Later and Present- Day Writers 303 

ing in various newspaper offices early in life. For many years 
he was editor of the Atlantic Monthly; at present he is connected 
editorially with Harper's Magazine. He has written many novels, 
sketches, and farces. Of his novels, The Rise of Silas Lapham is 
the strongest. Here he gives us a picture of the self-made Amer- 
ican who has been such a famiUar figure among us in these 
latter days. Howells stands for realism in fiction and has a 
large following among the younger writers. He is justly called 
the dean of American letters. 



Some Islands of the Lagoons 

(From Venetian Life, Chapter XII) 

Nothing can be fairer to the eye than these "summer 
isles of Eden" lying all about Venice, far and near. The 
water forever trembles and changes with every change of 
light, from one rainbow glory to another, as with the 
restless hues of an opal; and even when the splendid tides 
recede, and go down with the sea, they leave a heritage 
of beauty to the empurpled mud of the shallows, all strewn 
with green, disheveled sea-weed. The lagoons have almost 
as wide a bound as your vision. On the east and west 
you can see their borders of sea-shore and mainland; but 
looking north and south, there seems no end to the charm 
of their vast, smooth, all-but-melancholy expanses. Beyond 
their southern limit rise the blue Euganean Hills, where 
Petrarch died; on the north loom the Alps, white with 
snow. Dotting the stretches of lagoon in every direction 
lie the islands — now piles of airy architecture that the 
water seems to float under and bear upon its breast, now 

"Sunny spots of greenery," 

with the bell-towers of demolished cloisters shadowily 
showing above their trees;— for in the days of the Republic 
nearly every one of the islands had its monastery and its 
church. At present the greater number have been for- 
tified by the Austrians, whose sentinel paces the once- 
peaceful shores and challenges all passers with his sharp 



304 American Literature 

"Halt! Wer da!" and warns them not to approach too 
closely. Other islands have been devoted to different 
utiHtarian purposes, and few are able to keep their distant 
promises of loveliness. One of the more faithful is the 
island of San Clemente, on which the old convent church 
is yet standing, empty and forlorn within, but without 
all draped in glossy ivy. . . . 

THE GHETTO AND THE JEWS OF VENICE 
(Chapter XIV) 

As I think it extremely questionable whether I could get 
through a chapter on this subject without some feeble 
pleasantry about Shylock, and whether, if I did, the reader 
would be at all satisfied that I had treated the matter fully 
and fairly, I say at the beginning that Shylock is dead; 
that if he lived, Antonio would hardly spit upon his gor- 
geous pantaloons or his Parisian coat, as he met him on 
the Rial to; that he would far rather call out to him, "Cid 
Shylock! Bon di! Go piaser vederla";^ that if Shylock 
by any chance entrapped Antonio into a foohsh promise 
to pay him a pound of his flesh on certain conditions, the 
honest commissary of pohce before whom they brought 
their affair would dismiss them both to the madhouse at 
San Servolo. In a word, the present social relations of 
Jew and Christian in this city render the ''Merchant of 
Venice" quite impossible; and the reader, though he will 
find the Ghetto sufficiently noisome and dirty, will not find 
an oppressed people there, nor be edified by any of those 
insults or beatings which it was once a large share of 
Christian duty to inflict upon the enemies of our faith. 
The CathoHc Venetian certainly understands that his 
Jewish fellow-citizen is destined to some very unpleasant 
experiences in the next world, but Corpo di Bacco! that is 
no reason why he should not be friends with him in this. 
He meets him daily on exchange and at the Casino, and he 
partakes of the hospitahty of his conversazioni. If he 
still despises him — ^and I think he does, a little — he keeps his 

'"Shylock, old fellow, good-day. Glad to see you." 



Later and Present-Day Writers 305 

contempt to himself, for the Jew is gathering into his own 
hands a great part of the trade of the city, and has the 
power that belongs to wealth. He is educated, hberal, 
and enlightened, and the last great name in Venetian lit- 
erature is that of the Jewish historian of the Republic, 
Romanin. The Jew's pohtical sympathies are invariably 
patriotic, and he calls himself, not Ebreo, but Veneziano. 
He lives, when rich, in a palace or a fine house on the 
Grand Canal, and he furnishes and lets many others (I 
must say at rates which savor of the loan secured by the 
pound of flesh) in which he does not Hve. The famous 
and beautiful Ca' Doro now belongs to a Jewish family; 
and an Israelite, the most distinguished physician in Venice, 
occupies the appartamento signorile in the palace of the 
famous Cardinal Bembo. The Jew is a physician, a banker, 
a manufacturer, a merchant; and he makes himself re- 
spected for his intelligence and his probity, — which per- 
haps does not infringe more than that of Italian Cathohcs. 
He dresses well, — with that indefinable difference, however, 
which distinguishes him in everything from a Christian, 
— and his wife and daughter are fashionable and styhsh. 
They are sometimes, also, very pretty; and I have seen one 
Jewish lady who might have stepped out of the sacred 
page, down from the patriarchal age, and been known for 
Rebecca, with her oriental grace, and delicate, sensitive, 
high-bred look and bearing — no more western and modern 
than a lily of Palestine. 

The following writers are representative of our Htera- 
ture in the South, — the old South, with its plantation life, 
its slaves, and its Creoles: Francis Hopkinson Sm.ith, George 
Washington Cable, Joel Chandler Harris, Thomas Nelson 
Page, and Ruth McEnery Stuart. 

3. Francis Hopkinson Smith (1838- ) is a native of 
Baltimore. He is an artist and a mechanical engineer, as well 
as an author who ranks with the best of our fiction writers from 
the South to-day. His Colonel Carter of Cartersville stands a 



306 American Literature 

fair chance of becoming a classic; his short stories are fascinat- 
ing studies in character types. 

MacWherter's Fireplace 

(From The Wood Fire in No. 3) 

Sandy MacWhirter would have an open fire. He had 
been brought up on blazing logs and warm hearths, and 
could not be happy without them. . . . 

There was no chimney in No. 3 when he moved in— 
no place really to put one, unless he knocked a hole in the 
roof . . . nor was there any way of supporting the neces- 
sary brickwork. . . . But trifling obstacles like these never 
daunted MacWhirter. Lonnegan, a Beaux Arts man, who 
built the big Opera House, and who also hungered for 
blazing logs, solved the difficulty. . . . 

It was a great day when Mac's fireplace was completed. 
Everybody crowded in to see it. . . . 

And the friends that this old fire had; and the way the 
men loved it despite the Hberties they tried to take with it! 
And they did, at first, take liberties, and of the most ex- 
asperating kind to any well-intentioned, law-abiding, and 
knowledgeable wood fire. Boggs, the animal painter, whose 
studio lay immediately beneath MacWhirter's, was never, 
at first, satisfied until he had punched it black in the face; 
Wharton, who occupied No. 4, across the hall, would insist 
that each log should be on its head and the kindling grouped 
about it; while Pitkin, the sculptor, who occupied the base- 
ment because of his dirty clay and big chunks of marble, 
was miserable until he had jammed the back-log so tight 
against the besmoked chimney that not a breath of air 
could get between it and the blackened bricks. 

But none of these well-meant but inexperienced attacks 
ever daunted the spirit of this fire. It would splutter a 
moment with ill-concealed indignation, threatening a dozen 
times to go out in smoke, and then, all of a sudden a 
little bubble of laughing flame would break out under one 
end of a log, and then another, and away it would go roar- 
ing up the chimney in a very ecstasy of delight. 

Now and then it would talk back; I have heard it many 



Later and Present-Day Writers 307 

a time, when Mac and I would be sitting alone before it 
listening to its chatter. 

"Take a seat," it would crackle, "right in front where I 
can warm you. Sit, too, where you can look into my face 
and see how ruddy and joyous it is. I'll not bore you; I 
never bored anybody — never in all my Kfe. I am an end- 
less series of surprises, and I am never twice alike. I can 
sparkle with merriment, or glow with humor, or roar with 
laughter, dependent on your mood, or upon mine. Or I 
can smoulder away all by myself, crooning a low song of 
the woods — the song your mother loved, your cradle song 
— so full of content that it will soothe you into forgetful- 
ness. When at last I creep under my gray blanket of 
ashes and shut my eyes, you, too, will want to sleep — you 
and I, old friends now with our thousand memories." 

Only MacWhirter really understood its many moods. 
"Alexander MacWhirter, Room No. 3," the signboard 
read in the hall below — and only MacWhirter could satisfy 
its wants; and so, after the first few months, no one dared 
touch it but our host, whose slightest nudge with the tongs 
was sufficient to kindle it into renewed activity. 

It was not long after this that a certain sense of owner- 
ship permeated the coterie. They yielded the chimney 
and its mechanical contrivances to MacWhirter and 
Lonnegan, but the blaze and its generous warmth belonged 
to them as much as to Mac. Soon chairs were sent up 
from the several studios, each member of the half-circle 
furnishing his own — the most comfortable he owned. 
Then the mug followed, and the pipe-racks, and soon 
Sandy MacWhirter's wood fire in No. 3 became the one 
spot in the building that we all loved and longed for. 

And Mac was exactly fashioned for High Priest of just 
such a Temple of Jollity: Merry-eyed, round-faced, with 
one and a quarter, perhaps one and a half, of a chin tucked 
under his old one — a chin though that came from laughter, 
not frort; laziness; broad-shouldered, deep-chested, hearty 
in his voice and words, with the faintest trace — just a 
trace, it was so slight — of his mother- tongue in his speech; 
whole-souled, spontaneous, unselfish, ready to praise and 



308 American Literature 

never to criticise, brimming with anecdotes and adventures 
of forty years of experience ... he had all the warmth 
of his blazing logs in his grasp and all the snap of their 
coals in his eyes. 

"By the Gods, but I'm glad to see you!" was his in- 
variable greeting. "Draw up ! draw up ! Go get a pipe — 
the tobacco is in the yellow jar." 

This was when Mac was alone or when no one had the 
floor, and the shuttlecock of general conversation was being 
battledored about. 

If, however, Mac or any of his guests had the floor, 
and was gi\"ing his experience at home or abroad, or was 
reaching the cUmax of some tale, it made no difference 
who entered no one took any more notice of him than of a 
servant who had brought in an extra log, the lost art of 
hstening still being in vogue in those days and much re- 
spected by the occupants of the chairs — by all except 
Boggs, who would always break into the conversation irre- 
spective of restrictions or traditions. . . , 

4. George Washington Cable (1844- ) is a native of 
New Orleans where he has spent most of his life, though he 
now lives in the North. He has won distinction in the literary 
world through his Creole stories, which are unique in the realm 
of American letters. He also ranks high as a poet. 

Cafe des Exiles 

(From Old Creole Days) 

An antiquated story-and-a-half Creole cottage sitting 
right down on the banquette, as do the Choctaw squaws 
who sell bay and sassafras and life-everlasting, with a high, 
close board-fence shutting out of view the diminutive 
garden on the southern side. An ancient willow droops 
over the roof of round tiles, and partly hides the discolored 
stucco, which keeps dropping off into the garden as though 
the old cafe was stripping for the plunge into obhvion — 
disrobing for its execution. I see, well up in the angle of 
the broad side gable, shaded by its rude awning of clap- 



Later and Present- Day Writers 309 

boards, as the eyes of an old dame are shaded by her 
wrinkled hand, the window of Pauline. Oh, for the image 
of the maiden, were it but for one moment, leaning out of 
the casement to hang her mocking-bird and looking down 
into the garden, — where, above the barrier of old boards, 
I see the top of the fig-tree, the pale green clump of bananas, 
the tall palmetto with its jagged crown, Pauline's own two 
orange-trees holding up their hands toward the window, 
heavy with the promises of autumn; the broad crimson 
mass of the many-stemmed oleander, and the crisp boughs 
of the pomegranate loaded with freckled apples, and with 
here and there a Hngering scarlet blossom. 

The Cafe des Exiles, to use a figure, flowered, bore fruit, 
and dropped it long ago — or rather Time and Fate, like 
some uncursed Adam and Eve, came side by side and cut 
away its clusters, as we sever the golden burden of the 
banana from its stem; then, like a banana which has borne 
its fruit, it was razed to the ground and made way for a 
newer, brighter growth. I beheve it would set every tooth 
on edge should I go by there now, — now that I have heard 
the story,— and see the old site covered by the "Shoo-fly 
Coffee-house." Pleasanter far to close my eyes and call 
to \iew the unpretentious portals of the old cafe, with her 
children— for such those exiles seem to me — dragging their 
rocking-chairs out, and sitting in their wonted group under 
the long, out-reaching eaves which shaded the banquette 
of the Rue Burgundy. 

It was in 1835 that the Cafe des Exiles was, as one might 
say, in full blossom. Old M. D'Hemecourt, father of 
Pauline and host of the cafe, himself a refugee from San 
Domingo, was the cause — at least the human cause — of its 
opening. As its white-curtained, glazed doors expanded, 
emitting a httle puff of his own cigarette smoke, it was Hke 
the bursting of catalpa blossoms, and the exiles came like 
bees, pushing into the tiny room to sip its rich variety of 
tropical sirups, its lemonades, its orangeades, its orgeats, 
its barley-waters, and its outlandish wines, while they 
talked of dear home — that is to say, of Barbadoes, of Mar- 
tinique, of San Domingo, and of Cuba. 



310 American Literature 

There were Pedro and Benigno, and Fernandez and 
Francisco, and Benito. Benito was a tall, swarthy man, 
with immense gray moustachios, and hair as harsh as 
tropical grass and gray as ashes. When he could spare his 
cigarette from his lips, he would tell you in a cavernous 
voice, and with a wrinkled smile, that he was "a-t-thorty- 
seveng." 

There was Martinez of San Domingo, yellow as a canary, 
always sitting with one leg curled under him, and holding 
the back of his head in his knitted fingers against the back 
of his rocking-chair. Father, mother, brother, sisters, all, 
had been massacred in the struggle of '21 and '22; he alone 
was left to tell the tale, and told it often, with that strange 
infantile insensibihty to the solemnity of his bereavement 
so peculiar to Latin people. 

But, besides these, and many who need no mention, 
there were two in particular, around whom all the story 
of the Cafe des Exiles, of old M. D'Hemecourt and of 
PauUne, turns as on a double centre. First, Manuel 
Mazaro, whose small, restless eyes were as black and 
bright as those of a mouse, whose Ught talk became his 
dark girhsh face, and whose redundant locks curled so 
prettily and so wonderfully black under the fine white 
brim of his jaunty Panama. He had the hands of a woman, 
save that the nails were stained with the smoke of ciga- 
rettes. He could play the guitar dehghtfuUy, and wore his 
knife down behind his coat-collar. 

The second was ''Major" Galahad Shaughnessy. I 
imagine I can see him, in his white duck, brass-buttoned 
roundabout, \\dth his sabreless belt peeping out beneath, 
all his bo}dshness in his sea-blue eyes, leaning Hghtly against 
the door-post of the Cafe des Exiles as a child leans against 
his mother, running his fingers over a basketful of fragrant 
limes, and watching his chance to strike some solemn 
Creole under the fifth rib with a good old Irish joke. . . . 

Y 5. Joel Chandler Harris (1848-1908) was a Georgia writer 
whose name became identified with his creation Uncle Remus, 
the teller of tales of Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox, which are the 
delight of all children. 



Later and Present- Day Writers 311 

The Story of the Doodang 
(From Uncle Remus and the Little Boy.) 

"I wish," said the little boy, sitting in the doorway of 
Uncle Remus's cabin, and watching a \'ulture poised on 
motionless ^ing, almost as high as the clouds that sailed 
by— "I ^-ish I could fly." 

The old man regarded him curiously, and then a frown 
crept up and sat do-«Ti on his forehead. ''I'll tell you dis 
much, honey," he said, "ef eve'ybody vr^iz ter git all der 
wishes, de wide worl' 'ud be turned upside down, an' be 
rolHn' over de wrong way. It sho would I" He continued 
to regard the little boy with such a solenm aspect that 
the child moved uneasily in his seat on the door-step. 
"You sho does put me in min' er de ol' Doodang dat useter 
live in de mud-flats down on de river. I ain't never see 'im 
myse'f, but I done seed dem what say dey hear tell 'er dem 
what is see 'im. 

"None im um can't tell what kinder creetur de Doodang 
wuz. He had a long tail, like a yallergater, a great big 
body, four short legs, two short y'ears. and a head mo' 
funny lookin' dan de rh\-nossyho5S. His mouf retched 
from de een er his nose ter his shoulder-blades, an' his 
tushes \\niz big 'nough, long 'nough, an' sharp 'nough fer 
ter bite off de behime leg uv a elephant. He could hve 
in de water, er he could Hve on dry Ian', but he mos'ly 
wallered in de mud-flats, whar he could retch do\sTi in de 
water an' ketch a fish, er retch up in de bushes an' ketch 
a bird. But all dis ain't suit 'im a tall; he got restless; he 
tuk ter wantin' things he ain't got; an' he worried an' 
worried, an' groaned an' growled. He kep' all de creeturs, 
fur and feather, wide awake fer miles aroun'. 

"Bimeby. one day. Brer Rabbit come a-sa'nterin' by, 
an' he ax de Doodang what de name er goodness is de 
matter, an' de Doodang 'spon' an' say dat he wanter swim 
ez good ez de fishes does. 

"Brer Rabbit say, 'Ouch! you make de col' chills run 
up an' down my back when you talk 'bout swimmin' in 



312 American Literature 

de water. Swim on dry Ian' ol' frien' — swim on dry 
Ian'!' 

"But some er de fishes done hear what de Doodang say, 
an' dey helt a big 'sembly. Dey vow, dey can't stan' de 
racket dat he been makin' bofe day an' night. De upshot 
uv de 'sembly wuz dat all de fishes 'gree fer ter loan de 
Doodang one fin apiece. So said, so done, an' when dey 
tol' de Doodang about it, he fetched one loud howl an' 
rolled inter shaller water. Once dar, de fishes loant 'im 
eve'y one a fin, some big an' some Httle, an' atter dey done 
dat, de Doodang 'skivver dat he kin swim des ez nimble 
ez de rest. 

"He skeeted about in de water, wavin' his tail fum side 
ter side, an' swimmin' fur an' wide; Brer Rabbit wuz 
settin' off in de bushes watchin'. Atter while de Doodang 
git tired, an' start ter go on dry Ian', but de fishes kick 
up sech a big fuss, an' make sech a cry, dat he say he better 
gi' um back der fins, an' den he crawled out on de mud- 
flats fer ter take his nap. 

"He ain't been dozin' so mighty long, 'fo' he hear a 
mighty big fuss, an' he look up an' see dat de blue sky wuz 
fa'rly black wid birds, big an' little. De trees on de islan' 
wuz der roostin' place, but dey wuz comin' home soon so 
dey kin git some sleep "fo' de Doodang set up his howlin' 
an' growlin', an' moanin' an' groanin'. Well, de birds 
ain't mo'n got settle', 'fo' de Doodang start up his howlin' 
an' bellerin'. Den de King-Bird flew'd down an' ax de 
Doodang what de nam' er goodness is de matter. Den 
de Doodang turn over in de mud, an' howl an' beller. De 
King-Bird flew'd aroun', an' den he come back, an' ax 
what de trouble is. Atter so long a time, de Doodang say 
dat de trouble wid him wuz dat he wanted ter fly. He 
say all he want wuz some feathers, an' den he kin fly ez 
good ez anybody. 

"Den der birds hoi' a 'sembly, an' dey all 'gree fer ter 
loan de Doodang a feather apiece. So said, so done, an' 
in a minnit er mo' he had de feathers a-plenty. He shuck 
his wings, an' ax whar 'bouts he mus' fly fer de first try. 

"Brer Buzzard say de best place wuz ter de islan' what 



Later and Present- Day Writers 313 

ain't got nothin' but dead trees on it, an' wid dat de Doo- 
dang tuk a runnin' start, an' headed fer de place. He wuz 
kinder clumsy, but he got dar all right. De birds went 
'long fer ter see how de Doodang 'ud come out. He landed 
wid a turrible splash an' splutter, an' he ain't hardly hit 
de groun' 'fo' Brer Buzzard say he don't want his feather 
fer ter git wet, an' he grabbed it. Den all de birds grabbed 
der'n, an' dar he wuz. 

" Days an' days come an' went, an' bimeby Brer Rabbit 
wanter know what done gone wid de Doodang. Brer 
Buzzard say, ' You see my f ambly settin' in de dead trees ? 
Well, dar's whar de Doodang is, en' ef you'll git me a bag, 
I'll fetch you his bones !' An' den Brer Rabbit sot back 
an' laugh twel his sides ache !" 

"Anyhow," said the Httle boy, "I should like to fly." 
"Fly, den," replied Uncle Remus; "Fly right in de 
house dis minnit, ter yo' mammy !" 

6. Thomas Nelson Page (1853- ) is one of the best- 
known writers of the South. His stories of Virginia life " be- 
fore the war" are widely read. He was appointed Ambassador 
to Italy by President Wilson in 1913. 

Marse Chan 
(From In Oh Virginia) 



"Well, one night Marse Chan come back from de offis 
wid a telegram dat say, 'Come at once,' so he wuz to start 
nex' mawnin'. He uniform wuz all ready, gray wid yaller 
trimmin's, an' mine wuz ready too, an' he had ole marster's 
sword, whar de State gi' 'im in de Mexikin war; an' he 
trunks wuz all packed wid ev'rything in 'em, an' my chist 
wuz packed too, an' Jim Rasher he druv' 'em over to de 
depo' in de waggin', an' we wuz to start nex' mawnin' 
'bout light. Dis wuz 'bout de las' o' spring, yo' know. 

Dat night ole missis made Marse Chan dress up in he 
uniform, an' he sut'n'y did look splendid, wid he long 
mustache an' he wavin' hyar an' he tall figger. 



314 American Literature 

"Arfter supper he come down an' sez: 'Sam, I wan' you 
to tek dis note an' kyar it over to Cun'l Chahmb'lin's. an' 
gi' it to Miss Anne wid yo' own han's, an' bring me wud 
what she sez. Don' let any one know 'bout it, or know why 
you've gone.' 'Yes, seh,' sez I. 

"Yo' see, I knowed Miss Anne's maid over at ole Cun'l 
Chahmb'Un's — dat wuz Judy . . . —an' I knowed I could 
wuk it. So I tuk de roan an' rid over, an' tied 'im down de 
hill in de cedars, an' I wen' 'roun 'to de back yard. ... I 
soon foun' my gal, an' arfter tellin' her two or three lies 'bout 
herse'f , I got her to go in an' ax Miss Anne to come to de 
do'. When she come, I gi' her de note, an' arfter a little 
while she bro't me anurr, an' I tole her good-by, an' she 
gi' me a dollar, an' I come home an' gi' de letter to ^Marse 
Chan. He read it, an' tole me to have de bosses ready at 
twenty minits to twelve at de corner of de garden. An' 
jes' befo' dat he come out ez ef he wuz gwine to bed, but 
instid he come, an' we all struck out to'ds Cun'l Chahmb'- 
lin's. When we got mos' to de gate, de bosses got sort o' 
skerred, an' I see dey wuz some'n or somebody stan'in' jes' 
inside; an' Marse Chan he jump' off de sorrel an' flung me 
de bridle and he walked up. 

"She spoke fust. 'Twuz Miss Anne had done come out 
dyah to meet Marse Chan, an' she sez, jes' cz cold ez a 
chill, 'Well, seh, I granted your favor. I wished to re- 
Hebe myse'f of de obhgations you placed me under a few 
months ago, when you made me a present of my father, 
whom you fust insulted an' then prevented from gittin' 
satisfaction.' 

"Marse Chan he didn' speak fur a minit, an' den he said: 
'Who is with you?' (Dat wuz ev'y word.) 

"'No one,' sez she; 'I came alone.' 

"'My God!' sez he, 'you didn't come all through those 
woods by yourse'f at this time o' night ? ' 

'"Yes, I'm not afraid,' sez she. (An' heah dis nigger ! I 
don't b'heve she wuz.) . . . 

"Marse Chan, he den tole her he bed come to say good- 
by to her, ez he wuz gwine 'way to de war nex' mawnin'. 
I wuz watchin' on her, an' I tho't when Marse Chan tole 



Later and Present- Day Writers 315 

her dat, she sort o' started an' looked up at 'im Hke she 
wuz mighty sorry, an' 'peared like she didn' stan' quite so 
straight arfter dat. Den Marse Chan he went on talkin' 
right fars' to her; an' he tole her how he had loved her ever 
sence she wuz a little bit o' baby mos', an' how he nuver 
'membered de time when he hedn' hope' to marry her. 
He tole her it wuz his love for her hed made 'im stan' fust 
at school an' collige, and hed kep' 'im good an' pure; an' 
now he wuz gwine 'way, wouldn' she let it be like 'twuz in 
ole times, an' ef he come back from de war wouldn' she try 
to think on him ez she use' to when she wuz a Uttle 
guirl ? 

"Marse Chan he had done been talkin' so serious, he 
hed done tuk Miss Anne's han', an' wuz lookin' down in 
her face like he wuz list'nin' wid he eyes. 

"Arfter a minit Miss Anne she said somethin', an' Marse 
Chan he cotch her urr han' an' sez: 

"'But if you love me, Anne?' 

"When he said dat, she tu'ned her head 'way from 'im, 
an' wait' a minit, an' den she said — right clear: 

"'But I don' love yo'. (Jes' dem th'ee wuds.) De 
wuds fall right slow — like dirt falls out a spade on a cofl&n 
when yo's buryin' anybody, an' seys, 'Uth to uth.' Marse 
Chan he jes' let her hand drap, an' he stiddy hisse'f 'g'inst 
de gate-pos', an' he didn' speak torekly. When he did 
speak, all he sez wuz: 

"'I mus' see you home safe.' 

"I 'clar, marster, I didn't know 'twuz Marse Chan's 
voice tell I look at 'im right good. Well, she wouldn' let 
'im go wid her. . . . Soon ez she got 'mos' 'roun' de curve, 
Marse Chan he followed her, keepin' under de trees so ez 
not to be seen, an' I led the bosses on down de road behine 
'im. He kep' 'long behine her tell she wuz safe in de house, 
an' den he come an' got on he boss, an' we all come home. 

"Nex' mawnin' we all went off to j'ine de army. . . . 
In camp he use' to be so sorrerful he'd hardly open he 
mouf. You'd 'a' tho't he wuz seekin', he used to look so 
moanful; but jes' le' 'im git into danger, an' he use' to be 
like ole times — jolly an' laughin' like when he wuz a boy. 



316 American Literature 

"When Cap'n Gordon got he leg shoot off, dey mek Marse 
Chan cap'n on de spot. . . . 

"An' Marse Chan he wuz jes' de same. He didn' nuver 
mention Miss Anne's name, but I knowed he wuz thinkin' 
on her constant. . . . 

"Well, I got one o' de gent'mens to write Judy a letter 
for me, an' I tole her . . . how Marse Chan wuz a-dyin' fur 
love o' Miss Anne. An' Judy she had to git Miss Anne to 
read de letter fur her. Den Miss Anne she tells her pa, 
an' — you mind, Judy tells me all dis arfterwards, an' she 
say when Cun'l Chahmb'hn hear 'bout it, he wuz settin' 
on de poach, an' he set still a good while, an' den he sey to 
hisse'f : 

"'Well, he earn' he'p bein' a Whig.' 

"An' den he gits up an' walks up to Miss Anne an' looks 
at her right hard; an' Miss Anne she hed done tu'n away 
her haid an' wuz makin' out she wuz fixin' a rose-bush 
'g'inst de poach; an' when her pa kep' lookin' at her, her 
face got jes' de color o' de roses on de bush, and pres'n'y 
her pa sez: 

"'Anne!' 

"An' she tu'ned roun', an' he sez: 

"'Do yo' want 'im?' 

"An' she sez, 'Yes,' an' put her head on he shoulder an' 
begin to cry; an' he sez: 

'"Well, I won' Stan' between yo' no longer. Write to 
'im an' say so.' 

"We didn' know nuthin' 'bout dis den. We wuz a- 
fightin' an' a-fightin' all dat time; an' come one day a let- 
ter to Marse Chan, an' I see 'im start to read it in his tent 
... an' he face hit look so cu'iousome an' he ban's trembled 
so I couldn' mek out what wuz de matter wid 'im. An' he 
fol' de letter up an' wen' out an' wen' way down 'hine de 
camp, an' stayed dyah 'bout nigh an hour. Well, seh, I 
wuz on de lookout for 'im when he come back, an' 'fo' 
Gord, ef he face didn' shine like a angel ! I say to myse'f , 
'Umm', ef de glory o' Gord ain' done shine on 'im!' An' 
what yo' 'spose 'twuz? 

"He tuk me wid 'im dat evenin' an' he tell me he had 



Later and Present- Day Writers 317 

done git a letter from Miss Anne, an' Marse Chan he eyes 
look like gre't big stars. . . . 

"He fol' de letter wha' was in his han' up, an' put it in he 
inside pocket — right dyah on de lef side; an' den he tole me 
he tho't mebbe we wuz gwine hev some warm wuk in de 
nex' two or th'ee days, an' arfter dat ef Gord speared 'im 
he'd git a leave o' absence fur a few days, an' we'd go home. 

"Well, dat night de orders come, an' we all hed to git over 
to'ds Romney; an' we rid all night till 'bout light; an' we 
halted right on a little creek, an' we stayed dyah till mos' 
breakfast time . . . an' I see Marse Chan set down on de 
groun' hine a bush an' read dat letter over an' over. I 
watch 'im, an' de battle wuz a-goin' on, but we had orders 
to stay 'hine de hill, an' ev'y now an' den de bullets would 
cut de limbs o' de trees right over us, an' one o' dem big 
shells what goes Awhar — awhar — awhar — is you ! would fall 
right 'mong us; but Marse Chan he didn' mine it no mo'n 
nuttin' ! Den it 'peared to git closer an' thicker, and Marse 
Chan he calls me, an' I crep' up, an' he sez: 

"'Sam, we'se goin' to win in dis battle, an' den we'll go 
home an' git married; an' I'm goin' home wid a star on my 
collar.' An' den he sez, 'Ef I'm wounded, kyar me home, 
yo' hear?' An' I sez, 'Yes, Marse Chan.' 

"Well, jes' den dey blowed 'boots an' saddles,' an' we 
mounted. . . . An' dey said, ' Charge 'em ! ' an' my king ! ef 
ever you see bullets fly, dey did dat day. Hit wuz jes' 
like hail; an' we wen' down de slope (I 'long wid de res') 
an' up de hill right to'ds de cannons, an' de fire wuz so 
strong dyah (dey hed a whole rigiment o' infintrys layin' 
down dyah onder de cannons) our lines sort o' broke an' 
stop; de cun'l was kilt, an' I b'lieve dey wuz jes' 'bout to 
bre'k all to pieces, when Marse Chan rid up an' cotch hoi' 
de fleg an' hollers, ' Poller me ! ' an' rid strainin' up de hill 
'mong de cannons. . . . Yo' ain' nuver hear thunder ! Fust 
thing I knowed, de roan roll' head over heels an' flung me 
up 'g'inst de bank, like yo' chuck a nubbin over 'g'inst 
de foot o' de corn pile. An' dat's what kep' me from bein' 
kilt, I 'specks. . . . When I look' 'roun', de roan wuz layin' 
dyah by me, stone dead, wid a cannon-ball gone 'mos* 



318 American Literature 

th'oo him, an' our men hed done swep' dem on t'urr 
side from de top o' de hill. 'Twan' mo'n a minit, de sorrel 
come gallupin' back wid his mane fiyin' an' de rein hanging 
down on one side to his knee. ' Dyah ! ' sez I, ' 'fo' Gord ! 
I 'specks dey done kill Marse Chan, an' I promised to tek 
care on him.' 

"I jumped up an' run over de banks, an' dyah, wid a 
whole lot o' dead men, an' some not dead yit, onder one o' 
de guns wid de fleg still in he han', an' a bullet right th'oo 
he body, lay Marse Chan. I tu'n 'im over an' call 'im, 
'Marse Chan !' but 'twan' no use, he wuz done gone home, 
sho' 'nuff. I pick' 'im up in my arms wid de fleg still in 
he ban's, an' toted 'im back jes' like I did dat day when he 
wuz a baby, an' ole marster gin 'im to me in my arms, an' 
sez he could trus' me, an' tell me to tek keer on 'im long 
ez he lived. I kyar'd 'im 'way off de battlefiel' out de way 
o' de balls, an' I laid 'im down onder a big tree till I could 
git somebody to ketch de sorrel for me. He wuz cotched 
arfter a while, an' I hed some money, so I got some pine 
plank an' made a coffin dat evenin', an' wrapt Marse 
Chan's body up in de fleg, an' put 'im in de coffin; but I 
didn' nail de top on strong, 'cause I knowed ole missis 
wan' see 'im; an' I got a' ambulance an' set out for home 
dat night. We reached dyah de nex' even', arfter travelHn' 
all dat night an' all nex' day. 

"Hit 'peared hke some thin' hed tole ole missis we wuz 
comin' so; for when we got home she wuz waitin' for us — 
done drest up in her best Sunday-clo'es, an' stan'in' at 
de head o' de big steps, an' ole marster settin' in his big 
cheer — ez we druv up de hill to'ds de house, I drivin' de 
ambulance an' de sorrel leadin' long behine wid de stir- 
rups crost over de saddle. 

"She come down to de gate to meet us. We took de 
coffin out de ambulance an' kyar'd it right into de big 
parlor. ... In dyah we laid de coffin on two o' de cheers, 
an' ole missis nuver said a wud; she jes' looked so ole an' 
white. 

"When I hed tell 'em all 'bout it, I tu'ned 'roun' an' rid 
over to Cun'l Chahmb'lin's, 'cause I knowed dat wuz 



Later and Present- Day Writers 319 

what Marse Chan he'd 'a' wanted me to do. I didn't 
tell anybody whar I wuz gwine, 'cause yo' know none on 
'em hadn' nuver speak to Miss Anne, not sence de dull, 
an' dey didn' know 'bout de letter. 

"When I rid up in de yard, dyah wuz Miss Anne a- 
stan'in' on de poach watchin' me ez I rid up. I tied my 
hoss to de fence, an' walked up de parf. ... I drapt my 
cap down on de een o' de steps an' went up. She nuver 
opened her mouf ; jes' stan' right still an' keep her eyes on 
my face. Fust, I couldn' speak ; den I cotch my voice, an' 
I say, 'Marse Chan, he done got he furlough.' 

"Her face was mighty ashy an' she sort o' shook, but 
she didn' fall. She tu'ned 'roun' an' said, 'Git me de 
ker'ige ! ' Dat wuz all. 

"When de ker'ige come 'roun', she hed put on her bon- 
net, an' wuz ready. Ez she got in, she sey to me, 'Hev 
yo' brought him home ? ' an' we drove 'long, I ridin' behine. 

"When we got home, she got out, an' walked up de big 
walk — up to de poach by herse'f. Ole missis hed done 
fin' de letter in Marse Chan's pocket, wid de love in it, 
while I wuz 'way an' she wuz a-waitin' on de poach. Dey 
sey dat wuz de fust time ole missis cry when she find de 
letter, an' dat she sut'n'y did cry over it, pintedly. 

"Well, seh. Miss Anne she walks right up de steps, mos' 
up to ole missis stan'in' dyah on de poach, an' jes' falls 
right down mos' to her, on her knees fust, an' den flat on 
her face right on de flo', ketchin' at ole missis' dress wid 
her two han's — ^so. 

"Ole missis stood for 'bout a minit lookin' down at her, 
an' den she drapt down on de flo' by her, an' took her in 
bofe her arms. 

"I couldn' see, I wuz cryin' so myse'f, an' ev'ybody wuz 
cryin'. But dey went in arfter a while in de parlor, an' 
shet de do'. . . . 

"Judy (she's my wife) she tell me she heah Miss Anne 
when she axed ole missis mout she wear mo'nin' fur 'im. 
I don' know how dat is; but when we buried 'im nex' day, 
she wuz de one whar walked arfter de coffin, holdin' ole 
marster, an' ole missis she walked nex' to 'em. 



320 American Literature 

"Well, we buried Marse Chan dyah in de ole grabeyard, 
wid de fleg wrap't roun' 'im, an' he face lookin' like it 
did dat mawnin' down in de low groun's, wid de new sun 
shinin' on it so peaceful." . . . 

7. Ruth McEnery Stuart (1856- ) is a native of Loui- 
siana. She has given us many humorous tales of the Southern 
negro, as in A Golden Wedding and Other Tales. (See BibHog- 
raphy, page 362, for suggested readings.) 

1 8. Henry R. James (1843- ) was born in New York 

j' but has lived in England since 1869. His name is associated 
^^'"~"~^ith that of Howells as a leader in American fiction. He, too, 
is an apostle of realism, and he has been eminently successful 
with the realistic short story. "When his short story The 
Passionate Pilgrim was published," says Mr. Hamilton Wright 
Mabie, "Americans had the feeling that at last we had 'ar- 
rived' in literature." He excels also in the international novel 
which his life abroad has fitted him to write. His early work 
is his best. Daisy Miller (1878) is considered by many his 
most interesting novel. 

Longueville's Sketch 

(From Confidence) 

It was in the early days of April; Bernard Longueville 
had been spending the winter in Rome. He had travelled 
northward with the consciousness of several social duties 
that appealed to him from the further side of the Alps, 
but he was under the charm of the Italian spring, and he 
made a pretext for lingering. He had spent five days 
at Siena, where he had intended to spend but two, and still 
it was impossible to continue his journey. . . . He had a 
fancy for sketching, and it was on his conscience to take 
a few pictorial notes. ... On the last morning of his visit, 
as he stood staring about him in the crowded piazza, and 
feeling that, in spite of its picturesqueness, this was an 
awkward place for setting up an easel, he bethought him- 
self, by contrast, of a quiet comer in another part of the 
town, which he had chanced upon in one of his first walks 



Later and Present- Day Writers 321 

.... The thing was what painters call a subject, and 
he had promised himself to come back with his utensils. 
This morning he returned to the inn and took possession 
of them, and then he made his way through a labyrinth 
of empty streets, lying on the edge of the town, within 
the wall, like the superfluous folds of a garment whose 
wearer has shrunken with old age. He reached his little 
grass-grown terrace, and found it as sunny and as private 
as before. . . . Longueville settled himself on the empty 
bench, and arranging his little portable apparatus, began 
to ply his brushes. ... It seemed almost an interruption 
when, in the silent air, he heard a distant bell in the 
town strike noon. Shortly after this, there was another 
interruption. The sound of a soft footstep caused him 
to look up; whereupon he saw a young woman standing 
there and bending her eyes upon the graceful artist. . . . 
She stood there a moment longer — long enough to let him 
see that she was a person of easy attitudes — and then she 
walked away slowly to the parapet of the terrace. Here 
she stationed herself, leaning her arms upon the high stone 
ledge, presenting her back to Longueville, and gazing at 
rural Italy. Longueville went on with his sketch, but less 
attentively than before. . , . His first feeling was that 
she would spoil it; his second was that she would improve 
it. Little by little she turned more into profile, leaning 
only one arm upon the parapet, while the other hand, 
holding her folded parasol, hung down at her side. She 
was motionless; it was almost as if she were standing there 
on purpose to be drawn. ... "Is she posing — is she atti- 
tudinizing for my benefit ? .. . . But posing or not," he went 
on, "I will put her into my sketch. She has simply put 
herself in. It will give it a human interest. There is 
nothing like having a human interest." So, with the ready 
skill that he possessed, he introduced the young girl's 
figure into his foreground, and at the end of ten minutes he 
had almost made something that had the form of a like- 
ness. "If she will only be quiet for another ten minutes," 
he said, " the thing will really be a picture." Unfortunately, 
the young lady was not quiet; she had apparently had 



322 American Literature 

enough of her attitude and her view. She turned away, 
facing Longueville again, and slowly came back, as if to 
re-enter the church. To do so she had to pass near him, 
and as she approached he instinctively got up, holding his 
drawing in one hand. She looked at him again, with that 
expression that he had mentally characterized as "bold" a 
few minutes before— with dark, intelligent eyes. Her hair 
was dark and dense; she was a strikingly handsome girl. 

"I am so sorry you moved," he said, confidently, in 
English. "You were so — so beautiful." 



"I am much obliged to you. Don't you think you have 
looked at me enough?" 

"By no means. I should like so much to finish my 
drawing." 

"I am not a professional model," said the young lady. 

"No. That's my difficulty," Longueville answered, 
laughing. "I can't propose to remunerate you." 

"You see it will be pure kindness," he went on, — "a 
simple act of charity. Five minutes will be enough. 
Treat me as an ItaHan beggar." 

He had laid down his sketch and had stepped forward. 
He stood there, obsequious, clasping his hands and smil- 
ing. ... 

"I wish to go to my mother," she said. 

"Where is your mother?" the young man asked. 

"In the church, of course. I didn't come here alone!" 

"Of course not; but you may be sure that your mother 
is very contented. I have been in that little church. It 
is charming. She is just resting there; she is probably 
tired. If you will kindly give me five minutes more, she 
will come out to you." 

"Five minutes?" the young girl asked. 

"Five minutes will do. I shall be eternally grate- 
ful." . . . 

The graceful stranger dropped an eye on the sketch again. 

"Is your picture so good as that?" she asked. 



Later and Present- Day Writers 323 

"I have a great deal of talent," he answered, laughing. 
"You shall see for yourself, when it is finished." 

She turned slowly toward the terrace again. 

"You certainly have a great deal of talent to induce me 
to do what you ask." And she walked to where she had 
stood before. Longuevillc made a movement to go with 
her, as if to show her the attitude he meant; but, pointing 
with decision to his easel, she said, — 

"You have only live minutes." He immediately went 
back to his work, and she made a vague attempt to take 
up her position. "You must tell me if this will do," she 
added, in a moment. 

" It will do beautifully," Longueville answered, in a happy 
tone, looking at her and plying his brush. " It is immensely 
good of you to take so much trouble." 

For a moment she made no rejoinder, but presently she 
said — 

"Of course if I pose at all I wish to pose well." 

"You pose admirably," said Longueville. 

After this she said nothing, and for several minutes he 
painted rapidly and in silence. . . . Longueville's little 
figure was a success — a charming success, he thought, as he 
put on the last touches. While he was doing this, his 
model's companion came into view. She came out of the 
church, pausing a moment as she looked from her daughter 
to the young man in the corner of the terrace; then she 
walked straight over to the young girl. She was a delicate 
little gentlewoman, with a light, quick step. 

Longueville's five minutes were up; so, leaving his place, 
he approached the two ladies, sketch in hand. . . . 

"It is my portrait," said her daughter, as Longueville 
drew near. "This gentleman has been sketching me." 

"Sketching you, dearest?" murmured her mother. 
"Wasn't it rather sudden?" 

"Very sudden — very abrupt!" exclaimed the young girl 
with a laugh. 

"Considering all that, it's very good," said Longueville, 
offering his picture to the elder lady, who took it and be- 
gan to examine it. . . . 



3*24 American Literature 

"It's a beautiful drawing," murmured [she], handing the 
thing back to Longueville. Her daughter meanwhile, had 
not even glanced at it. . . . 

"Won't you do me the honor of keeping my sketch?" 
he said. "I think it really looks like your daughter.". . . 

"It's extremely beautiful," she murmured, "and if 
you insist on my taking it " 

"I shall regard it as a great honor." 

"Very well, then; with many thanks, I will keep it." 
She looked at the young man a moment, while her daughter 
walked away. ... "I am sure you think she is a strange 
girl," she said. 

"She is extremely pretty." .... 

"Ah, but she's good !" cried the old lady. 

"I am sure she comes honestly by that," said Longue- 
ville, expressively, while his companion, returning his 
salutation with a certain scrupulous grace of her own, 
hurried after her daughter. 

Longueville remained there staring at the view, but not 
especially seeing it. He felt as if he had at once enjoyed 
and lost an opportunity. ... 

9. Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849- ) was born in 
England, but came to the United States when a young girl. 
She has written many novels and short stories. Her child 
stories such as Little Lord Fauntleroy and Editha's Burglar are 
very popular. 

Being a Lord 

(From Little Lord Fauntleroy, Chapter III) 

Cedric's good opinion of the advantages of being an 
earl increased greatly during the next week. It seemed 
almost impossible for him to realize that there was scarcely 
anything he might wish to do which he could not do easily; 
in fact, I think it may be said that he did not fully realize 
it at all. But at least he understood, after a few conver- 
sations with Mr. Havisham, that he could gratify all his 
nearest wishes, and he proceeded to gratify them with a 
simplicity and delight which caused Mr. Havisham much 



Later and Present- Day Writers 325 

diversion. In the week before they sailed for England, he 
did many curious things. The lawyer long after remem- 
bered the morning they went down-town together to pay 
a visit to Dick, and the afternoon they so amazed the 
apple-woman of ancient lineage by stopping before her 
stall and teUing her she was to have a tent, and a stove, 
and a shawl, and a sum of money which seemed to her 
quite wonderful. 

"For I have to go to England and be a lord," explained 
Cedric, sweet-temperedly. "And I shouldn't like to have 
your bones on my mind every time it rained. My own 
bones never hurt, so I think I don't know how painful a 
person's bones can be, but I've sympathized with you a 
great deal, and I hope you'll be better." 

"She's a very good apple-woman," he said to Mr. 
Havisham, as they walked away, leaving the proprietress 
of the stall almost gasping for breath, and not at all be- 
lieving in her great fortune. "Once, when I fell down and 
cut my knee, she gave me an apple for nothing. I've 
always remembered her for it. You know you always re- 
member people who are kind to you." 

It had never occurred to his honest, simple little mind 
that there were people who could forget kindnesses. 

The interview with Dick was quite exciting. Dick had 
just been having a great deal of trouble with Jake, and 
was in low spirits when they saw him. His amazement 
when Cedric calmly announced that they had come to 
give him what seemed a very great thing to him, and would 
set all his troubles right, almost struck him dumb. Lord 
Fauntleroy's manner of announcing the object of his visit 
was very simple and unceremonious. Mr. Havisham was 
much impressed by its directness as he stood by and 
listened. The statement that his old friend had become a 
lord, and was in danger of being an earl if he lived long 
enough, caused Dick to so open his eyes and mouth, and 
start, that his cap fell off. When he picked it up, he uttered 
a rather singular exclamation. Mr. Havisham thought it 
singular, but Cedric had heard it before. 

"I soy !" he said, "what're yer givin' us?" This plainly 



326 Arnerican Literature 

embarrassed his lordship a little, but he bore himself 
bravely. 

"Everybody thinks it not true at first," he said. "Mr. 
Hobbs thought I'd had a sunstroke. I didn't think I was 
going to hke it myself, but I Hke it better now I'm used 
to it. The one who is the earl now, he's my grandpapa; 
and he wants me to do anything I hke. He's very kind, 
if he is an earl; and he sent me a lot of money by Mr. 
Havisham, and I've brought some to you to buy Jake out." 

And the end of the matter was that Dick actually bought 
Jake out, and found himself the possessor of the business 
and some new brushes and a most astonishing sign and 
outfit. He could not beheve in his good luck any more 
easily than the apple-woman of ancient lineage could be- 
heve in hers; he walked about like a boot-black in a dream; 
he stared at his young benefactor and felt as if he might 
wake up at any moment. He scarcely seemed to realize 
anything until Cedric put out his hand to shake hands 
with him before going away. . . . 

lo. Mary N. Murfree ("850- ) is a native of Tennessee. 
Under the pen-name "Charles Egbert Craddock" she has 
written interesting character studies of the mountaineers of 
Tennessee, many novels of life in Tennessee and Mississippi, 
also historical romances, and volumes of short stories, magazine 
articles, and books for juvenile readers. 



J 



His Christmas Miracle 
(In The Raid of the Guerilla) 
He yearned for a sign from the heavens. . . 



The house was gone ! Even the site had vanished ! Ken- 
nedy stared bewildered. Slowly the realization of what had 
chanced here began to creep through his brain. Evidently 
there had been a gigantic landsHde. The cHfT-like projection 
was broken sheer off, — hurled into the depths of the valley. 
Some action of subterranean waters, throughout ages, 
doubtless, had been undermining the great crags till the 
rocky crust of the earth had collapsed. He could see even 



Later and Present- Day Writers 327 

now how the freeze had fractured out-cropping ledges 
where the ice had gathered in the fissures. A deep abyss 
that he remembered as being at a considerable distance 
from the mountain's brink, once spanned by a foot-bridge, 
now showed the remnant of its jagged, shattered walls at 
the extreme verge of the precipice. 

A cold chill of horror benumbed his senses. Basil, the 
wife, the children, — where were they? A terrible death, 
surely, to be torn from the warm securities of the hearth- 
stone, without a moment's warning, and hurled into the 
midst of this frantic turmoil of nature, down to the depths 
of the Gap, — a thousand feet below ! And at what time 
had this dread fate befallen his friend? He remembered 
that at the cross-roads' store, when he had paused on his 
way to warm himself that morning, some gossip was de- 
tailing the phenomenon of unseasonable thunder during 
the previous night, while others protested that it must 
have been only the clamors of "Christmas guns" firing all 
along the country-side. . . . 

Kennedy was s^^ely. conscious that he saw the vast 
disorder of the land-sKde, scattered from the precipice on 
the mountain's brink to the depths of the Gap — inverted 
roots of great pines thrust out in mid-air, foundations of 
crags riven asunder and hurled in monstrous fragments 
along the steep slant, unknown streams newly Hberated 
from the caverns of the range and cascading from the 
crevices of the rocks. In ejffect he could not believe his 
own eyes. His mind realized the perception of his senses 
only when his heart suddenly plunged with a wild hope, — 
he had discerned amongst the turmoil a shape of line and 
rule, the Httle box-hke hut ! Caught as it was in the boughs 
of a cluster of pines and firs, uprooted and thrust out at an 
incline a httle less than vertical, the inmates might have 
been spared such shock of the fall as would otherwise have 
proved fatal. 



He wondered, if the inmates yet lived, — he pitied them 
still more if they only existed to realize their peril, to await 



328 American Literature 

in an anguish of fear their ultimate doom. Perhaps — he 
knew he was but trifling with despair — some rescue might 
be devised. 

Such a weird cry he set up on the brink of the mountain ! 
— full of horror, grief, and that poignant hope. The 
echoes of the Gap seemed reluctant to repeat the tones, 
dull, slow, muffled in snow. But a sturdy halloo responded 
from the window, uppermost now, for the house lay on 
its side amongst the boughs. Kennedy thought he saw the 
paUid simulacrum of a face. 

''This be Jube Kennedy," he cried, reassuringly. "I be 
goin' ter fetch help, — men, ropes, and a windlass." 

"Make haste then, — we uns be nigh friz." 

"Ye air in no danger of fire, then?" asked the practical 
man. 

"We have hed none, — before we war flunged oflf'n the 
bluff we hed squinched the fire ter pledjure Bob, ez he war 
afeard Santy Claus would scorch his feet comin' down the 
chimbley, — powerful lucky fur we uns; the fire would hev 
burnt the house bodaciously." 

Kennedy hardly stayed to hear. He was off in a mo- 
ment, galloping at frantic speed along the snowy trail 
scarcely traceable in the sad Hght of the gray day; . . . 
reaching again the open sheeted roadway, bruised, bleed- 
ing, exhausted, yet furiously plunging forward, rousing 
the sparsely settled country-side with imperative insistence 
for help in this matter of life or death ! 

Death, indeed, only, — for the enterprise was pronounced 
impossible by those more experienced than Kennedy. 
Among the men now on the bluff were several who had been 
employed in the silver mines of this region, and they dem- 
onstrated conclusively that a rope could not be worked 
clear of the obstructions of the face of the rugged and 
shattered chffs; that a human being, drawn from the cabin, 
strapped in a chair, must needs be torn from it and flung 
into the abyss below, or beaten to a frightful death against 
the jagged rocks in the transit. 

"But not ef the chair was ter be steadied by a guy-rope 
from — say — from that thar old pine tree over thar," Ken- 



Later and Present-Day Writers 329 

nedy insisted, indicating the long bole of a partially up- 
rooted and inverted tree on the steeps. ''The chair would 
swing cl'ar of the bluff then." 

"But, Jube, it is onpossible ter git a guy-rope over ter 
that tree, — ^more than a man's Hfe is wuth ter try it." 

\ moment ensued of absolute silence, — space, however, 
for a hard-fought battle ... ere he said with a spare 
dull voice and dry lips, 

"Fix ter let me down ter that thar leanin' pine, boys, — ■ 
I'll kerry a guy-rope over thar." 

At one side the crag beetled, and although it was im- 
possible thence to reach the cabin with a rope it would 
swing clear of obstructions here, and might bring the rescuer 
within touch of the pine, where could be fastened the guy- 
rope; the other end would be affixed to the chair which 
could be lowered to the cabin only from the rugged face of 
the cUff. Kennedy harbored no self-deception; he more 
than doubted the outcome of the enterprise. He quaked 
and turned pale with dread as with the great rope knotted 
about his arm-pits and around his waist he was swung over 
the brink at the point where the crag jutted forth, — lower 
and lower still; now nearing the slanting inverted pine, 
caught amidst the debris of earth and rock; now failing to 
reach its boughs; once more •swinging back to a great 
distance, so did the length of the rope increase the scope 
of the pendulum; now nearing the pine again, and at last 
fairly lodged on the icy bole, knotting and coiling about it 
the end of the guy-rope, on which he had come and on which 
he must needs return. 

It seemed, through the inexpert handling of the Uttle 
group, a long time before the stout arm-chair was secured 
to the cables, slowly lowered, and landed at last on the 
outside of the hut. Many an anxious glance was cast at 
the slate-gray sky. An inopportune flurry of snow, a flaw 
of wind,— and even now all would be lost. Dusk too im- 
pended, and as the rope began to coil on the windlass at 
the signal to hoist, every eye was strained to discern the 
identity of the first voyagers in this aerial journey, — the 
two children, securely lashed to the chair. This was well, 



330 American Literature 

— all felt that both parents might best wait, might risk 
the added delay. The chair came swinging easily, swiftly, 
along the gradations of the rise, the guy-rope holding it 
well from the chances of contact with the jagged projec- 
tions of the face of the cHff, and the first shout of triumph 
rang sonorously from the summit. 

When next the chair rested on the cabin beside the 
window, a thrill of anxiety and anger went through Ken- 
nedy's heart to note, from his perch on the leaning pine, 
a struggle between husband and wife as to who should go 
first. Each was eager to take the many risks incident to 
the long wait in this precarious lodgment. The man was 
the stronger. AureHa was forced into the chair, tied fast, 
pushed off, waving her hand to her husband, shedding 
floods of tears, looking at him for the last time, as she 
fancied, and calKng out dismally, "Far'well, Basil, far'- 
well." 

Even this lugubrious demonstration could not damp 
the spirits of the men, working like mad at the windlass. 
They were jovial enough for bursts of laughter when it 
became apparent that Basil had utilized the ensuing in- 
terval to tie together, in preparation for the ascent wiih 
himself, the two objects which he next most treasured, his 
vioKn and his old hound. The trusty chair bore all aloft, 
and Basil was received with welcoming acclamations. 

Before the rope was wound anew and for the last time, 
the aspect of the group on the cliff had changed. It had 
grown eerie, indistinct. . . . The vale had disappeared in 
a sinister abyss of gloom, though Kennedy would not look 
down at its menace, but upward, always upward. . . . 
Now several drew together, and Hke a constellation glim- 
mered crown-like on the brow of the night, as he felt the 
rope stir with the signal to hoist. 

Upward, always upward, his eyes on that radiant stel- 
lular coronal, as it shone white and splendid in the snowy 
night. And now it had lost its mystic glamour, — disin- 
tegrated by gradual approach he could see the long handks 
of the pine-knots; the red verges of the flame; the blue 
and yellow tones of the focus; the trailing wreaths of dun- 



Later and Present- Day Writers 331 

tinted smoke that rose from them. Then became visible 
the faces of the men who held them, all crowding eagerly 
to the verge. But it was in a solemn silence that he was 
received; a drear cold darkness, every torch being struck 
downward into the snow; a frantic haste in unharnessing 
him from the ropes, for he was almost frozen. . . . 

A sudden figure started up with streaming white hair 
and patriarchal beard. 

"Will ye deny es ye hev hed a sign from the heavens, 
Jubal Kennedy?" the old circuit-rider straitly demanded. 
"How could ye hev strengthened yer heart fur sech a deed 
onless the grace o' God prevailed mightily within ye? 
Inasmuch as ye hev done it unto one o' the least o' these 
my brethren, ye hev done it unto me." 

"That ain't the kind o' sign, parson," Kennedy faltered. 
"I be looking fur a meracle in the yearth or in the air, 
that I kin view or hear." 

"The kingdom o' Christ is a spiritual kingdom," said 
the parson solemnly. "The kingdom of Christ is a spiritual 
kingdom, an' great are the wonders that are wrought 
therein." 



11. Margaret Wade Deland (1857- ) was born in 
Pennsylvania. She spent her early life in New York City but 
now lives in Boston. Her first novel John Ward, Preacher, 
published in 1888, at once made her popular. She has since 
written much for the magazines and has established a reputa- 
tion as one of the best of American noveHsts. (See Bibliog- 
raphy, page 361, for suggested readings.) 

12. Hamlin Garland (i860- ) is a Wisconsin author 
who has written many stories dealing with country life in the 
Middle West. Among his best-known books are Main- Travelled 
Roads and Rose of Butcher's Coolly. (See Bibliography, page 
362, for suggested readings.) 

^13. Ernest Thompson-Seton (i860- ) is an animal painter 
and illustrator as well as a writer of animal stories. He lives in 
New York City. 



332 American Literature 

Raggylug 

the story of a cottontail rabbit 

(From Wild Animals I Have Known) 

The rank swamp grass bent over and concealed the 
snug nest where Raggylug's mother had hidden him. 
She had partly covered him with some of the bedding, 
and, as always, her last warning was to "lay low and say 
nothing, whatever happens." . . . 

After a while he heard a strange rustling of the leaves in 
the near thicket. It was an odd, continuous sound, and 
though it went this way and that way and came ever 
nearer, there was no patter of feet with it. Rag had lived 
his whole life in the Swamp (he was three weeks old) and 
yet had never heard anything like this. Of course his 
curiosity was greatly aroused. His mother had cautioned 
him to lay low, but that was understood to be in case of dan- 
ger, and this strange sound without foot-falls could not 
be anything to fear. 

The low rasping went past close at hand, then to the 
right, then back, and seemed going away. Rag felt he 
knew what he was about; he wasn't a baby; it was his 
duty to learn what it was. He slowly raised his roly-poly 
body on his short fluffy legs, lifted his little round head 
above the covering of his nest and peeped out into the 
woods. The sound had ceased as soon as he moved. He 
saw nothing, so took one step forward to a clear view, and 
instantly found himself face to face with an enormous Black 
Serpent. 

"Mammy," he screamed in mortal terror as the monster 
darted at him. With all the strength of his tiny limbs 
he tried to run. But in a flash the Snake had him by one 
ear and whipped around him with his coils to gloat over 
the helpless little baby bunny he had secured for dinner. 

"Mam-my — Mam-my," gasped poor Kttle Raggylug 
as the cruel monster began slowly choking him to death. 
Very soon the little one's cry would have ceased, but 



Later and Present- Day Writers 333 

bounding through the woods straight as an arrow came 
Mammy. . . . The cry of her baby had filled her with 
the courage of a hero, and — hop, she went over that hor- 
rible reptile. Whack, she struck down at him with her 
sharp hind claws as she passed, giving him such a stinging 
blow that he squirmed with pain and hissed with anger. 

"M-a-m-m-y," came feebly from the little one. And 
Mammy came leaping again and again and struck harder 
and fiercer until the loathsome reptile let go the Httle one's 
ear and tried to bite the old one as she leaped over. But 
all he got was a mouthful of wool each time, and Molly's 
fierce blows began to tell, as long bloody rips were torn in 
the Black Snake's scaly armor. 

Things were now looking bad for the Snake ; and bracing 
himself for the next charge, he lost his tight hold on Baby 
Bunny, who at once wriggled out of the coils and away into 
the underbrush, breathless and terribly frightened, but 
unhurt save that his left ear was much torn by the teeth 
of that dreadful Serpent. 

Molly now had gained all she wanted. She had no 
notion of fighting for glory or revenge. Away she went 
into the woods and the little one followed the shining 
beacon of her snow-white tail until she led him to a safe 
corner of the Swamp. 

14. John Fox, Jr. (1861- ), has written both short 
stories and novels dealing chiefly with life in Kentucky. The 
Trail of the Lonesome Pine, one of his most popular works, has 
been successfully dramatized. 

The Lonesome Pine 

(From The Trail of the Lonesome Pine, Chapter II) 

He had seen the big pine when he first came to those 
hills — one morning, at daybreak, when the valley was a 
sea of mist that threw soft clinging spray to the very moun- 
tain tops: for even above the mists, that morning, its 
mighty head arose — sole visible proof that the earth still 
slept beneath. Straightway, he wondered how it had ever 



334 American Literature 

got there, so far above the few of its kind that haunted 
the green dark ravines far below. Some whirlwind, doubt- 
less, had sent a tiny cone cirding heavenward and dropped 
it there. It had sent others, too, no doubt, but how had 
this tree faced wind and storm alone and alone lived to 
defy both so proudly ? Some day he would learn. There- 
after, he had seen it, at noon — but httle less majestic 
among the oaks that stood about it; had seen it catching 
the last light at sunset, clean-cut against the after-glow, 
and like a dark, silent, mysterious sentinel guarding the 
mountain pass under the moon. He had seen it giving 
place with sombre dignity to the passing burst of spring- 
had seen it green among dying autumn leaves, green in 
the gray of winter trees and still green in a shroud of snow 
— a changeless promise that the earth must wake to Hfe 
again. The Lonesome Pine, the mountaineers called it, 
and the Lonesome Pine it always looked to be. From the 
beginning it had a curious fascination for him, and straight- 
way within him — half exile that he was— there sprang 
up a sympathy for it as for something that was human and 
a brother. And now he was on the trail of it at last. 
From every point that morning it had seemed almost to 
nod down to him as he climbed, and, when he reached the 
ledge that gave him sight of it from base to crown, the 
winds murmured among its needles like a welcoming voice. 
At once, he saw the secret of its life. On each side rose a 
cliff that had sheltered it from storms until its trunk had 
shot upwards so far and so straight and so strong that its 
green crown could lift itself on and on and bend — blow 
what might — as proudly and securely as a Hly on its stalk 
in a morning breeze. Dropping his bridle rein, he put 
one hand against it as though on the shoulder of a friend. 

"Old Man," he said, "you must be pretty lonesome up 
here, and I'm glad to meet you." 

For a while he sat against it, resting. He had no par- 
ticular purpose that day — no particular destination. His 
saddle-bags were across the cantle of his cow-boy saddle. 
His fishing rod was tied under one flap. He was young 
and his own master. Time was hanging heavy on his 



Later and Present- Day Writers 335 

hands that day and he loved the woods and the nooks and 
the crannies of them where his own kind rarely made its 
way. Beyond, the cove looked dark, forbidding, mys- 
terious, and what was beyond he did not know. So down 
there he would go. As he bent his head forward to rise, 
his eye caught the spot of sunlight, and he leaned over it 
with a smile. In the black earth was a human foot-print 
— too small and slender for the foot of a man, a boy, or 
a woman. Beyond, the same prints were visible — wider 
apart — and he smiled again. A girl had been there. She 
was the crimson flash that he saw as he started up the 
steep and mistook it for a flaming bush of sumach. She 
had seen him coming and she had fled. Still smiling he 
rose to his feet. 

15. Mary E. WilMns Freeman (1862- ) is famous for 
her sympathetic and accurate portrayal of New England life 
and character. Her best work is to be found in her short 
stories in the two volumes A New England Nun and Silence 
and Other Tales. (See Bibliography, page 362, for suggested 
readings.) 

16. Edith Wharton (1862- ), a New York author of 
distinction, is one of our best writers of both short stories and 
novels. Her best novels are, perhaps, The Valley of Decision, 
The House of Mirth, and The Fruit of the Tree. She has also 
written some notable poems. 

The Fulness of Life 

She stood, as it seemed, on a threshold, yet no tangible 
gateway was in front of her. Only a wide vista of light, 
mild yet penetrating as the gathered glimmer of innumer- 
able stars, expanded gradually before her eyes, in blissful 
contrast to the cavernous darkness from which she had of 
late emerged. 

She stepped forward, not frightened, but hesitating, and 
as her eyes began to grow more familiar with the melting 
depths of light about her, she distinguished the outlines 
of a landscape, at first swimming in the opaline uncer- 
tainty of Shelley's vaporous creations, then gradually 



336 American Literature 

resolved into distincter shape — the vast unrolling of a 
sunlit plain, aerial forms of mountains, and presently the 
silver crescent of a river in the valley, and a blue sten- 
cilUng of trees along its curve — something suggestive in 
its ineffable hue of an azure background of Leonardo's, 
strange, enchanting, mysterious, leading on the eye and 
the imagination into regions of fabulous dehght. As she 
gazed, her heart beat with a soft and rapturous surprise; 
so exquisite a promise she read in the summons of that 
hyaline distance. 

"And so death is not the end after all," in sheer glad- 
ness she heard herself exclaiming aloud. "I always knew 
that it couldn't be. I believed in Darwin, of course. I 
do still; but then Darwin himself said that he wasn't 
sure about the soul — at least, I think he did — and Wallace 
was a spiritualist; and then there was St. George 
Mivart " 

Her gaze lost itself in the ethereal remoteness of the 
mountains. 

"How beautiful! How satisfying!" she murmured. 
"Perhaps now I shall really know what it is to live." 

As she spoke she felt a sudden thickening of her heart- 
beats, and looking up she was aware that before her stood 
the Spirit of Life. 

"Have you never really known what it is to Hve?" the 
Spirit of Life asked her. 

"I have never known," she replied, "that fulness of 
life which we all feel ourselves capable of knowing; though 
my Hfe has not been without scattered hints of it, like the 
scent of earth which comes to one sometimes far out at sea." 

"And what do you call the fulness of hfe?" the Spirit 
asked again. 

"Oh, I can't tell you, if you don't know," she said 
almost reproachfully. "Many words are supposed to define 
it — love and sympathy are those in commonest use, but 
I am not even sure that they are the right ones, and so few 
people really know what they mean." 

"You were married," said the Spirit, "yet you did not 
find the fulness of hfe in your marriage?" 



Later and Present- Day Writers 337 

"Oh, dear, no," she replied, with an indulgent scorn, 
"my marriage was a very incomplete afifair." 

"And yet you were fond of your husband?" 

"You have hit upon the exact word; I was fond of him, 
yes, just as I was fond of my grandmother, and the house 
that I was born in, and my old nurse. Oh, I was fond of 
him, and we were counted a very happy couple." . . . 

"Then," the Spirit continued, "those moments of which 
you lately spoke, which seemed to come to you like scat- 
tered hints of the fulness of hfe, were not shared with your 
husband?" 

"Oh, no — never. He was different. His boots creaked, 
and he always slammed the door when he went out, and 
he never read anything but railway novels and the sporting 
advertisements in the papers — and — and, in short, we never 
understood each other in the least." 

"To what influence, then, did you owe those exquisite 
sensations?" 

"I can hardly tell. Sometimes to the perfume of a 
flower; sometimes to a verse of Dante or of Shakespeare; 
sometimes to a picture or a sunset, or to one of those calm 
days at sea, when one seems to be lying in the hollow of a 
blue pearl; sometimes, but rarely, to a word spoken by 
someone who chanced to give utterance, at the right 
moment, to what I felt but could not express." 

"Someone whom you loved?" asked the Spirit. 

"I never loved anyone, in that way," she said, rather 
sadly, "nor was I thinking of any one person when I spoke, 
but of two or three who, by touching for an instant upon 
a certain chord of my being, had called forth a single note 
of that strange melody which seemed sleeping in my soul." 

. . . Then the Spirit of Life said: "There is a compen- 
sation in store for such needs as you have expressed." 

"Oh, then you do understand?" she exclaimed. "Tell 
me what compensation, I entreat you !" 

"It is ordained," the Spirit answered, "that every soul 
which seeks in vain on earth for a kindred soul to whom it 
can lay bare its inmost being shall find that soul here and 
be united to it for eternity." 



338 American Literature 

A glad cry broke from her lips. 

"Ah, shall I find him at last?" she cried, exultant. 

"He is here," said the Spirit of Life. 

She looked up and saw that a man stood near whose 
soul (for in that unwonted light she seemed to see his soul 
more clearly than his face) drew her toward him with an 
invincible force. 

"Are you really he?" she murmured. 

"I am he," he answered. 

She laid her hand in his and drew him toward the parapet 
which overhung the valley. 

"Shall we go down together," she asked him, "into that 
marvellous country; shall we see it together as if with the 
self-same eyes, and tell each other in the same words all 
that we think and feel?" 

"So," he replied, "have I hoped and dreamed." 

"What?" she asked with rising joy. "Then you, too, 
have looked for me?" 

"All my life." 

"How wonderful! And did you never, never find any- 
one in the other world who understood you?" 

"Not wholly — not as you and I understand each other." 

"Then you feel it, too? Oh, I am happy," she sighed. 

They stood, hand in hand, looking down over the parapet 
upon the shimmering landscape which stretched forth 
beneath them into sapphirine space, and the Spirit of 
Life, who kept watch near the threshold, heard now and 
then a floating fragment of their talk blown backward like 
the stray swallows which the wind sometimes separates 
from their migratory tribe. ... At length, with a certain 
tender impatience, he turned to her and said: "Love, why 
should we linger here? All eternity lies before us. Let 
us go down into that beautiful country together and make 
a home for ourselves on some blue hill above the shining 
river." . . . 

"A home," she repeated slowly, "a home for you and 
me to live in for all eternity?" 

"Why not, love? Am I not the soul that yours has 
sought?" 



Later and Present-Day Writers 339 

"Y-yes — yes, I know — but. don't you see, home would 
not be like home to me. unless '' 

''Unless?" he wonderingly repeated. 

She did not answer, but she thought to herself, with an 
impulse of whimsical inconsistency, ''Unless you slammed 
the door and wore creaking boots." . . . 

"Come, my soul's soul." he passionately implored; 
"why delay a moment? Surely you feel, as I do, that 
eternity itself is too short to hold such bhss as ours." . . . 

She made no answer to his pleadings, but at length, 
rousing herself vdlh. a \-isible effort, she turned away from 
him and moved toward the Spirit of Life, who still stood 
near the threshold. 

"I want to ask you a question," she said in a troubled 
voice. 

"Ask." said the Spirit. 

"A httle while ago." she began, slowly, "you told me 
that every soul which has not found a kindred soul on 
earth is destined to hnd one here." 

'"And have you not found one?" asked the Spirit. 

"Yes; but vdW it be so \s-ith my husband's soul also?" 

"No," answered the Spirit of Life, "for your husband 
imagined that he had found his soul's mate on earth in you; 
and for such delusions eternity itself contains no cure." 

She gave a Httle cr},-. Was it of disappointment or tri- 
umph? 

"Then — then what will happen to him when he comes 
here?" 

''That I cannot tell you. Some field of acti\'ity and 
happiness he will doubtless find, in due measure to his ca- 
pacity for being active and happy." 

She interrupted, almost angrily: 

"He vdVi never be happy -^-ithout me." 

"Do not be too sure of that," said the Spirit. 

She took no notice of this, and the Spirit continued: "He 
will not understand you here any better than he did on 
earth." 

"No matter," she said; "I shall be the only sufferer, for 
he alwavs thought that he understood me." 



340 American Literature 

"His boots will creak just as much as ever " 

"No matter." 

"And he will slam the door " 

"Very likely." 

"And continue to read railway novels " 

She interposed, impatiently: "Many men do worse than 
that." 

"But you said just now," said the Spirit, "that you did 
not love him." 

"True," she answered, simply; "but don't you under- 
stand that I shouldn't feel at home without him? It is 
all very well for a week or two — but for eternity ! After 
all, I never minded the creaking of his boots, except when 
mv head ached, and I don't suppose it will ache here; and 
he was always so sorry when he had slammed the door, 
only he never could remember not to. Besides, no one else 
would know how to look after him, he is so helpless. His 
inkstand would never be filled, and he would always be 
out of stamps and visiting-cards. He would never re- 
member to have his umbrella re-covered, or to ask the 
price of anything before he bought it. Why, he wouldn't 
even know what novels to read. I always had to choose 
the kind he liked, with a murder or a forgery and a success- 
ful detective." 

She turned abruptly to her kindred soul, who stood Hsten- 
ing with a mien of dismay. 

"Don't you see," she said, "that I can't possibly go with 
you?" 

"But what do you intend to do?" asked the Spirit of 
Life. 

"What do I intend to do?" she returned, indignantly. 
"Why, I mean to wait for my husband, of course. If he 
had come here first he would have waited for me for years 
and years; and it would break his heart not to find me here 
when he comes." . . . 

"But, consider," warned the Spirit, "that you are now 
choosing for eternity. It is a solemn moment." 

"Choosing!" she said with a half-sad smile. . . , "He 
will expect to find me here when he comes, and he would 



Later and Present- Day Writers 341 

never believe you if you told him that I had gone away with 
some one else — never, never." 

"So be it," said the Spirit. "Here as on earth, each one 
must decide for himself." 

She turned to her kindred soul and looked at him 
gently, almost wistfully. "I am sorry," she said. "I 
should have liked to talk with you again ; but you will under- 
stand, I know, and I dare say you will find someone else a 
great deal cleverer " 

And without pausing to hear his answer she waved him 
a swift farewell and turned back toward the threshold. 

"Will my husband come soon?" she asked the Spirit of 
Life. 

"That you are not destined to know," the Spirit repUed. 

"No matter," she said, cheerfully; "I have all eternity 
to wait in." 

And still seated alone on the threshold, she Hstens for the 
creaking of his boots. 

17. Richard Harding Davis (1864- ) inherited his gift 
from his mother Rebecca Harding Davis, a novelist of some 
note. For many years he was a New York journalist. He is 
famous for his short stories, among which Van Bibber and Others 
and Gallagher are the most popular. As a newspaper corre- 
spondent Ke has won many laurels. He was war correspondent 
during the Spanish-American War and was in Belgium during 
the early weeks of the great European War (1914), concerning 
which he has written many interesting articles for the news- 
papers and magazines. 

Mr. Travers's First Hunt 

(From Van Bibber and Others) 

Young Travers, who had been engaged to a girl down 
on Long Island for the last three months, only met her 
father and brother a few weeks before the day set for 
the wedding. . . . Old Mr. Paddock, the father of the girl 
to whom Travers was engaged, had often said that when a 
young man asked him for his daughter's hand he would 
ask him in return, not if he had lived straight, but if he 
could ride straight. And on his answering this question 



342 American Literature 

in the affirmative depended his gaining her parent's con- 
sent. Travers had met Miss Paddock and her mother in 
Europe, while the men of the family were at home. He 
was invited to their place in the fall when the hunting 
season opened, and spent the evening most pleasantly 
and satisfactorily with hh fiancee in a corner of the drawing- 
room. But as soon as the women had gone, young Pad- 
dock joined him and said, "You ride, of course?" Travers 
had never ridden; but he had been prompted how to 
answer by Miss Paddock, and so said there was nothing 
he liked better. As he expressed it, he would rather ride 
than sleep. 

"That's good," said Paddock. "I'll give you a mount 
on Satan to-morrow morning at the meet. He is a bit 
nasty at the start of the season; and ever since he killed 
Wallis, the second groom, last year, none of us care much 
to ride him. But you can manage him, no doubt. He'll 
just carry your weight." 

Mr. Travers dreamed that night of taking large, des- 
perate leaps into space on a wild horse that snorted forth 
flames, and that rose at solid stone walls as though they 
were hayricks. 

He was tempted to say he was ill in the morning — which 
was, considering his state of mind, more or less true — but 
concluded that, as he would have to ride sooner or later 
during his visit, and that if he did break his neck it would 
be in a good cause, he determined to do his best. He did 
not want to ride at all, for two excellent reasons — first, 
because he wanted to live for Miss Paddock's sake, and, 
second, because he wanted to live for his own. 

The next morning ... he came down-stairs looking very 
miserable indeed. Satan had been taken to the place 
where they were to meet, and Travers viewed him on his 
arrival there with a sickening sense of fear as he saw him 
pulling three grooms off their feet. 

Travers decided that he would stay with his feet on solid 
earth just as long as he could, and when the hounds were 
thrown off and the rest had started at a gallop he waited, 
under the pretence of adjusting his gaiters, until they were 
all well away. Then he clenched his teeth, crammed his 



Later and Present-Day Writers 343 

hat down over his ears, and scrambled up on to the saddle. 
His feet fell quite by accident into the stirrups, and the 
next instant he was off after the others, with an indistinct 
feeling that he was on a locomotive that was jimiping the 
ties. Satan was in among and had passed the other horses 
in less than five minutes, and was so close on the hounds 
that the whippers-in gave a cry of warning. But Travers 
could as soon have pulled a boat back from going over 
the Niagara Falls as Satan, and it was only because" the 
hounds were well ahead that saved them from having 
Satan ride them down. Travers had taken hold of the 
saddle with his left hand to keep himself down, and sawed 
and swayed *on the reins with his right. He shut his eyes 
whenever Satan jumped, and never knew how he hap- 
pened to stick on; but he did stick on, and was so far ahead 
that no one could see in the misty morning just how badly 
he rode. As it was, for daring and speed he led the field, 
and not even young Paddock was near him from the starjt. 
There was a broad stream in front of him, and a hill just 
on its other side. No one had ever tried to take this at 
a jump. It was considered more of a swim than anything 
else, and the hunters always crossed it by the bridge, 
towards the left. *^ravers saw the bridge and tried to 
jerk Satan's head in that direction; but Satan kept right 
on as straight as an express train over the prairie. Fences 
and trees and furrows passed by and under Travers like 
a panorama run by electricity, and he only breathed by 
accident. They went on at the stream and the hill beyond 
as though they were riding at a stretch of turf, and, though 
the whole field set up a shout of warning and dismay, Trav- 
ers could only gasp and shut his eyes. He remembered 
the fate of the second groom and shivered. Then the 
horse rose like a rocket, lifting Travers so high in the air 
that he thought Satan would never come down again; 
but he did come down, with his feet bunched, on the oppo- 
site side of the stream. The next instant he was up and 
over the hill, and had stopped panting in the very center 
of the pack that were snarHng and snapping around the 
fox. And then Travers showed that he was a thorough- 



344 American Literature 

bred, even though he could not ride, for he hastily fumbled 
for his cigar-case, and when the field came pounding up 
over the bridge and around the hill, they saw him seated 
nonchalantly on his saddle, puffing critically at a cigar 
and giving Satan patronizing pats on the head. 

"My dear girl," said old Mr. Paddock to his daughter 
as they rode back, "if you love that young man of yours 
and want to keep him, make him promise to give up rid- 
ing. A more reckless and more brilliant horseman I have 
never seen. He took that double jump at the gate and 
that stream like a centaur. But he will break his neck 
sooner or later, and he ought to be stopped." Young 
Paddock was so delighted with his prospective brother-in- 
law's great riding that, that night in the smoking-room he 
made him a present of Satan before all the men. 

"No," said Travers, gloomily, "I can't take him. Your 
sister has asked me to give up what is dearer to me than 
anything next to herself, and that is my riding. You see, 
she is absurdly anxious for my safety, and she has asked 
me to promise never to ride again, and I have given my 
word." 

A chorus of sympathetic remonstrances rose from the 
men. 

"Yes, I know," said Travers to her brother, "it is rough, 
but it just shows what sacrifices a man will make for the 
woman he loves." 

1 8. Frank Norris (i 870-1 902), a journalist residing in Cal- 
ifornia at the time of his death, was one of the most promising 
of the younger group of novelists. He attained distinction 
through The Octopus (1901), which was the first of a series of 
three novels in which he planned " the epic of the wheat." The 
second story, The Pit, came out in 1903, but the last one planned, 
The Wolf, was never written. 

The Wheat Pit 
(From The Pit, Chapter III) 
It was a vast enclosure, lighted on either side by great 
windows of coloured glass, the roof supported by thin 



Later and Present-Day Writers 345 

iron pillars elaborately decorated. To the left were the 
bulletin blackboards, and beyond these, in the northwest 
angle of the floor, a great railed-in space where the Western 
Union Telegraph was installed. To the right, on the 
other side of the room, a row of tables, laden with neatly 
arranged paper bags, half full of samples of grains, stretched 
along the east wall from the doorway of the pubhc room 
at one end to the telephone room at the other. 

The centre of the floor was occupied by the pits. To 
the left and to the front of Landry the provision pit, to 
the right the corn pit, while further on at the north ex- 
tremity of the floor, and nearly under the visitors' gallery, 
much larger than the other two, and flanked by the wicket 
of the official recorder, was the wheat pit itself. 

Directly opposite the visitors' gallery, high upon the 
south wall, a great dial was affixed, and on the dial a mark- 
ing hand that indicated the current price of wheat, fluc- 
tuating with the changes made in the Pit. Just now it 
stood at ninety-three and three-eighths, the closing quo- 
tation of the preceding day. 

As yet all the pits were empty. It was some fifteen 
minutes after nine. Landry checked his hat and coat at 
the coat room near 'the north entrance, and shpped into 
an old tennis jacket of striped blue flannel. Then, hatless, 
his hands in his pockets, he leisurely crossed the floor, 
and sat down in one of the chairs that were ranged in files 
upon the floor in front of the telegraph enclosure. He 
scrutinised again the despatches and orders that he held 
in his hands; then, having fixed them in his memory, tore 
them into very small bits, looking vaguely about the room, 
developing his plan of campaign for the morning. 



Meanwhile the floor was beginning to fill up. Over in 
the railed-in space, where the hundreds of telegraph in- 
struments were in place, the operators were arriving in 
twos and threes. They hung their hats and ulsters upon 
the pegs in the wall back of them, and in hnen coats, or in 
their shirt-sleeves, went to their seats, or, sitting upon their 



346 American Literature 

tables, called back and forth to each other, joshing, crack- 
ing jokes. Some few addressed themselves directly to work, 
and here and there the intermittent clicking of a key began, 
like a diligent cricket busking himself in advance of its 
mates. 

From the corridors on the ground floor up through the 
south doors came the pit traders in increasing groups. 
The noise of footsteps began to echo from the high vaulting 
of the roof. A messenger boy crossed the floor chanting 
an unintelKgible name. 

The groups of traders gradually converged upon the 
corn and wheat pits, and on the steps of the latter, their 
arms crossed upon their knees, two men, one wearing a 
silk skull cap all awry, conversed earnestly in low tones. 

But by now it was near to half-past nine. From the 
Western Union desks the clicking of the throng of instru- 
ments rose into the air in an incessant staccato stridula- 
tion. The messenger boys ran back and forth at top speed, 
dodging in and out among the knots of clerks and traders, 
colHding with one another, and without interruption in- 
toning the names of those for whom they had despatches. 
The throng of traders concentrated upon the pits, and at 
every moment the deep-toned hum of the murmur of many 
voices swelled like the rising of a tide. 

The official reporter climbed to his perch in the little 
cage on the edge of the Pit, shutting the door after him. 
By now the chanting of the messenger boys was an unin- 
terrupted chorus. From all sides of the building, and in 
every direction, they crossed and recrossed each other, al- 
ways running, their hands full of yellow envelopes. From 
the telephone alcoves came the prolonged, musical rasp 
of the call bells. In the Western Union booths the keys 
of the multitude of instruments raged incessantly. Bare- 
headed young men hurried up to one another, conferred 
an instant comparing despatches, then separated, darting 
away at top speed. Men called to each other half-way 



Later and Present- Day Writers 347 

across the building. Over by the bulletin boards clerks 
and agents made careful memoranda of primary receipts, 
and noted down the amount of wheat on passage, the ex- 
ports and the imports. 

And all these sounds, the clatter of the telegraph, the 
intoning of the messenger boys, the shouts and cries of 
clerks and traders, the shuffle and tramphng of hundreds 
of feet, the whirring of telephone signals rose into the 
troubled air, and mingled overhead to form a vast note, 
prolonged, sustained, that reverberated from vault to vault 
of the airy roof, and issued from every doorway, every 
opened window in one long roll of uninterrupted thunder. 
In the Wheat Pit the bids, no longer obedient of restraint, 
began one by one to burst out, Hke the first isolated shots 
of a skirmish Hne. 



Then suddenly, cutting squarely athwart the vague 
crescendo of the floor, came the single incisive stroke of a 
great gong. Instantly a tumult was unchained. Arms 
were flung upward in strenuous gestures, and from above 
the crowding heads in the Wheat Pit a multitude of hands, 
eager, the fingers extended, leaped into the air. All 
articulate expression was lost in the single explosion of 
sound as the traders surged downwards to the centre of 
the Pit, grabbing each other, struggHng towards each other, 
tramping, stamping, charging through with might and 
main. Promptly the hand on the great dial above the clock 
stirred and trembled, and as though driven by the tempest 
breath of the Pit moved upward through the degrees of 
its circle. It paused, wavered, stopped at length, and 
on the instant the hundreds of telegraph keys scattered 
throughout the building began chcking off the news to 
the whole country, from the Atlantic to the Pacific and 
from Mackinac to Mexico, that the Chicago market had 
made a shght advance and that May wheat, which had 
closed the day before at ninety-three and three-eighths, 
had opened that morning at ninety-four and a half. 



348 American Literature 

By degrees the clamour died away, ceased, began again 
irregularly, then abruptly stilled. Here and there a bid 
was called, an offer made, like the intermittent crack of 
small arms after the stopping of the cannonade. . . . 

For an instant the shoutings were renewed. Then sud- 
denly the gong struck. The traders began slowly to leave 
the Pit. One of the floor officers, an old fellow in uniform 
and vizored cap, appeared, gently shouldering towards 
the door the groups wherein the bidding and offering were 
still languidly going on. His voice full of remonstration 
he repeated continually: "Time's up, gentlemen. Go on 
now and get your lunch. Lunch time now. Go on now, 
or I'll have to report you. Time's up." 

The tide set toward the doorways. In the gallery the 
few visitors rose, putting on coats and wraps. Over by 
the check counter, to the right of the south entrance to 
the floor, a throng of brokers and traders jostled each 
other, reaching over one another's shoulders for hats and 
ulsters. In steadily increasing numbers they poured out 
of the north and south entrances, on their way to turn in 
their trading cards to the offices. 

Little by little the floor emptied. The provision and 
grain pits were deserted, and as the clamour of the place 
lapsed away the telegraph instruments began to make 
themselves heard once more, together with the chanting 
of the messenger boys. 

Swept clean in the morning, the floor itself, seen now 
through the thinning groups, was littered from end to end 
with scattered grain — oats, wheat, corn, and barley, with 
wisps of hay, peanut shells, apple parings, and orange peel, 
with torn newspapers, odds and ends of memoranda, 
crushed paper darts, and above all with a countless multi- 
tude of yellow telegraph forms, thousands upon thousands, 
crumpled and muddied under the trampling of innumer- 
able feet. It was the debris of the battle-field, the aban- 
doned impedimenta and broken weapons of contending 
armies, the detritus of conflict, torn, broken, and rent, 
that at the end of each day's combat encumbered the 
field. 



Later and Present- Day Writers 349 

At last even the click of the last telegraph key died down. 
Shouldering themselves into their overcoats, the operators 
departed, calling back and forth to one another, making 
"dates," and cracking jokes. Washerwomen appeared 
with steaming pails; porters pushing great brooms before 
them began gathering the refuse of the floor into heaps. 



A cat, grey and striped, wearing a dog collar of nickel 
and red leather, issued from the coat room and picked her 
way across the floor. Evidently she was in a mood of the 
most ingratiating friendhness, and as one after another of 
the departing traders spoke to her, raised her tail in the 
air and arched her back against the legs of the empty 
chairs. The janitor put in an appearance, lowering the 
tall colored windows with a long rod. A noise of hammer- 
ing and the scrape of saws began to issue from a corner 
where a couple of carpenters tinkered about one of the 
sample tables. 

Then at last even the settlement clerks took themselves 
off. At once there was a great silence, broken only by the 
harsh rasp of the carpenters' saws and the voice of the 
janitor exchanging jokes with the washerwomen. The 
sound of footsteps in distant quarters re-echoed as if in a 
church. 

The washerwomen invaded the floor, spreading soapy 
and steaming water before them. Over by the sample 
tables a negro porter in shirt-sleeves swept entire bushels 
of spilled wheat, crushed, broken, and sodden, into his 
dust pans. 

The day's campaign was over. It was past two o'clock. 
On the great dial against the eastern wall the indicator 
stood — sentinel fashion — at ninety-three. Not till the 
following morning would the whirlpool, the great central 
force that spun the Niagara of wheat in its grip, thunder 
and bellow again. 

Later on even the washerwomen, even the porter and 
janitor, departed. An unbroken silence, the peacefulness 
of an untroubled calm, settled over the place. The rays 



350 American Literature 

of the afternoon sun flooded through the west windows in 
long parallel shafts full of floating golden motes. There 
was no sound; nothing stirred. The floor of the Board of 
Trade was deserted. Alone, on the edge of the abandoned 
Wheat Pit, in a spot where the sunlight fell warmest — an 
atom of life, lost in the immensity of the empty floor — the 
grey cat made her toilet, diligently licking the fur on the 
inside of her thigh, one leg, as if dislocated, thrust into 
the air above her head. 



19. William Sidney Porter (186^910), popularly known 
as " O. Henry," has been called " themscoverer of the romance 
of New York's streets," the "Bret Harte of the city." He was 
a prolific writer of short stories dealing with New York life in 
the slums. It is said that he knew New York as no other author 
has known it. His stories are full of pathos and tragedy and 
a touch of humor withal. 



The Count and the Wedding Guest 
(In The Trimmed Lamp) 

One evening when Andy Donovan went to dinner at 
his Second Avenue boarding-house, Mrs. Scott intro- 
duced him to a new boarder, a young lady. Miss Conway. 
Miss Conway was small and unobtrusive. She wore a 
plain, snuffy-brown dress, and bestowed her interest, 
which seemed languid, upon her plate. She lifted her 
diffident eyelids and shot one perspicuous, judicial glance 
at Mr. Donovan, politely murmured his name, and re- 
turned to her mutton. Mr. Donovan bowed with the 
grace and beaming smile that were rapidly winning for 
him social, business and political advancement, and erased 
the snuffy-brown one from the tablets of his consideration. 

Two weeks later Andy was sitting on the front steps 
enjoying his cigar. There was a soft rustle behind and 
above him, and Andy turned his head — and had his head 
turned. 

Just coming out the door was Miss Conway. She wore 
a night-black dress of crepe de — crepe de — oh, this thin 



Later and Present- Day Writers 351 

black goods. Her hat was black, and from it drooped and 
fluttered an ebon veil, filmy as a spider's web. She stood on 
the top step and drew on black silk gloves. Not a speck of 
white or a spot of color about her dress anywhere. Her 
rich golden hair was drawn, with scarcely a ripple, into a 
shining, smooth knot low on her neck. Her face was plain 
rather than pretty, but it was now illuminated and made 
almost beautiful by her large gray eyes that gazed above 
the houses across the street into the sky with an expression 
of the most appealing sadness and melancholy. . . . 

Mr. Donovan suddenly reinscribed Miss Conway upon 
the tablets of his consideration. . . . 

"It's a fine, clear evening. Miss Conway," he said and 
if the Weather Bureau could have heard the confident 
emphasis of his tones it would have hoisted the square 
white signal and nailed it to the mast. 

"To them that has the heart to enjoy it, it is, Mr. Dono- 
van," said Miss Conway, with a sigh. . . . 

"I hope none of your relatives — I hope you haven't sus- 
tained a loss?" ventured Mr. Donovan. 

"Death has claimed," said Miss Conway, hesitating — 
"not a relative, but one who — but I will not intrude my 
grief upon you, Mr. Donovan." 

"Intrude?" protested Mr. Donovan. "Why, say. Miss 
Conway, I'd be dehghted, that is, I'd be sorry — I mean 
I'm sure nobody could sympathize with you truer than I 
would." 

Miss Conway smiled a little smile. And oh, it was 
sadder than her expression in repose. 

"'Laugh, and the world laughs with you; weep, and 
they give you the laugh,'" she quoted. "I have learned 
that, Mr. Donovan. I have no friends or acquaintances 
in this city. But you have been kind to me. I appreciate 
it highly." 

He had passed her the pepper twice at the table. 

"It's tough to be alone in New York — that's a cinch," 
said Mr. Donovan. "But, say — whenever this little old 
town does loosen up and get friendly it goes the limit. Say 
you took a little stroll in the park, Miss Conway — don't 



352 American Literature 

you think it might chase away some of your mullygrubs? 
And if you'd allow me " 

"Thanks, Mr. Donovan. I'd be pleased to accept of 
your escort if you think the company of one whose heart 
is filled with gloom could be anyways agreeable to you." 

Through the open gates" of the iron-railed, old, down- 
town park, where the elect once took the air, they strolled 
and found a quiet bench. . . . 

"He was my fiance," confided Miss Conway, at the end 
of an hour. "We were going to be married next spring. . . . 
He was a real Count. He had an estate and a castle in 
Italy. Count Fernando Mazzini was his name. I never 
saw the beat of him for elegance. Papa objected, of 
course, and once we eloped, but papa overtook us, and 
took us back. I thought sure papa and Fernando would 
fight a duel. Papa has a livery business — in P'kipsee, you 
know. 

"Finally, papa came around all right, and said we might 
be married next spring. Fernando showed him proofs of 
his title and wealth, and then went over to Italy to get the 
castle fixed up for us. . . . And when Fernando sailed I 
came to the city and got a position as cashier in a candy 
store. 

"Three days ago I got a letter from Italy, forwarded 
from P'kipsee, saying that Fernando had been killed in a 
gondola accident. 

"That is why I am in mourning. My heart, Mr. Dono- 
van, will remain forever in his grave. I guess I am poor 
company, Mr. Donovan, but I can not take any interest in 
no one. I should not care to keep you from gaiety and your 
friends who can smile and entertain you. Perhaps you 
would prefer to walk back to the house?" . . . 

"I'm awful sorry," said Mr. Donovan gently. "No, we 
won't walk back to the house just yet. And don't say you 
haven't no friends in this city. Miss Conway. I'm awful 
sorry, and I want you to believe I'm your friend, and that 
I'm awful sorry." 

"I've got his picture here in my locket," said Miss Con- 
way, after wiping her eyes with her handkerchief. "I 



Later and Present- Day Writers 353 

never showed it to anybody, but I will to you, Mr. Donovan, 
because I believe you to be a true friend." 

Mr. Donovan gazed long and with much interest at 
the photograph in the locket that Miss Conway opened 
for him. The face of Count Mazzini was one to command 
interest. It was a smooth, intelHgent, bright, almost a 
handsome face — the face of a strong, cheerful man who 
might well be a leader among his fellows. 

"I have a larger one, framed, in my room," said Miss 
Conway. "When we return I will show you that. They 
are all I have to remind me of Fernando. But he ever will 
be present in my heart, that's a sure thing." . . . 

Before they parted in the hall that evening she ran up- 
stairs and brought down the framed photograph wrapped 
lovingly in a white silk scarf. Mr. Donovan surveyed it 
with inscrutable eyes. 

"He gave me this the night he left for Italy," said Miss 
Conway. "I had one for the locket made from this." 

"A fine-looking man," said Mr. Donovan heartily. "How 
would it suit you. Miss Conway, to give me the pleasure 
of 3^our company to Coney next Sunday afternoon?" 

A month later they announced their engagement to Mrs. 
Scott and the other boarders. Miss Conway continued to 
wear black. 

A week after the announcement the two sat on the same 
bench in' the downtown park, while the fluttering leaves of 
the trees made a dim kinetoscopic picture of them in the 
moonhght. But Donovan had worn a look of abstracted 
gloom all day. He was so silent to-night that love's hps 
could not keep back any longer the questions that love's 
heart propounded. 

"What's the matter, Andy, you are so solemn and 
grouchy to-night?" 

"Nothing, Maggie." 

"I know better. Can't I tell? You never acted this 
way before. What is it?" 

"It's nothing much, Maggie." 

"Yes it is, and I want to know. I'll bet it's some other 
girl you are thinking about. All right. Why don't you go 



354 American Literature 

and get her if you want her ? Take your arm away, if you 
please." 

"I'll tell you then," said Andy wisely; "but I guess you 
won't understand it exactly. You've heard of Mike Sulli- 
van, haven't you? 'Big Mike' Sullivan, everybody calls 
him." 

"No, I haven't," said Maggie. "And I don't want to, if 
he makes you act like this. Who is he?" 

"He's the biggest man in New York," said Andy, almost 
reverently. "He can do about anything he wants to with 
Tammany or any other old thing in the political line. . . . 

"Well, Big Mike's a friend of mine. I ain't more than 
deuce-high in the district as far as influence goes, but 
Mike's as good a friend to a little man, or a poor man, as 
he is to a big one. I met him to-day on the Bowery, and 
what do you think he does ? Comes up and shakes hands. 
... I told him I was going to get married in two weeks. 
'Andy,' says he, 'send me an invitation, so I'll keep in mind 
of it, and I'll come to the wedding.' That's what Big Mike 
says to me; and he always does what he says. 

"You don't understand it, Maggie, but I'd have one of 
my hands cut off to have Big Mike SulHvan at our wedding. 
It would be the proudest day of my Hfe." . . . 

"Why don't you invite him, then, if he's so much to the 
mustard?" said Maggie lightly. 

"There's a reason why I can't," said Andy sadly. 
"There's a reason why he mustn't be there. Don't ask me 
what it is, for I can't tell you." 

"Oh, I don't care," said Maggie. "It's something about 
politics, of course. But it's no reason why you can't smile 
at me." 

"Maggie," said Andy presently, "do you think as much of 
me as you did of your — as you did of the Count Mazzini?" 

He waited a long time, but Maggie did not reply. And 
then, suddenly she leaned against his shoulder and began 
to cry — to cry and shake with sobs, holding his arm tightly 
and wetting the crepe de Chine with tears. 

"There, there, there!" soothed Andy, putting aside his 
own trouble. "And what is it now?" 



Later and Present- Day Writers 355 

"Andy," sobbed Maggie, "I've lied to you and you'll 
never marry me, or love me any more. But I feel that 
I've got to tell. Andy, there never was so much as the 
little finger of a count. I never had a beau in my life. 
But all the other girls had, and they talked about 'em, 
and that seemed to make the fellows like 'em more. And, 
Andy, I look swell in black — you know I do. So I went 
out to a photograph store and bought that picture, and 
had a httle one made for my locket, and made up all that 
story about the Count and about his being killed, so I 
could wear black. And nobody can love a liar and you'll 
shake me, Andy, and I'll die for shame. Oh, there never 
was anybody I liked but you — and that's all." 

But instead of being pushed away she found Andy's arm 
folding her closely. She looked up and saw his face cleared 
and smiling. 

"Could you — could you forgive me, Andy?" 

"Sure," said Andy. "It's all right about that. Back to 
the cemetery for the Count. You've straightened every- 
thing out, Maggie. I was in hopes you would before the 
wedding-day. Bully girl!" 

"Andy," said Maggie with a somewhat shy smile, after 
she had been thoroughly assured of forgiveness, "did you 
beheve all that story about the Count?" 

"Well, not to any large extent," said Andy, reaching for 
his cigar-case; "because it's Big Mike SulHvan's picture 
you've got in that locket of yours." 

20. Winston Churchill (1871- ) was born in St. Louis, 
Missouri, and is a graduate of the United States Naval Acad- 
emy. His field is chiefly that of the historical novel. Among 
his best works are Richard Carvel, The Crisis, and Coniston. 

Some Memories of Childhood 

(From Richard Carvel, Chapter II) 

One fifteenth of June two children sat with bated breath 
in the pinnace, — Dorothy Manners and myself. Mistress 
Dolly was then as mischievous a httle baggage as ever she 



35G American Literature 

J 
proved afterwards. * She was coming to pass a week at the 
Hall, her parents, whose place was next to ours, having 
gone to Philadelphia on a visit. We rounded Kent Island, 
which lay green and " beautiful in the flashing waters, 
and at length caught 'sight of the old windmill, with its 
great arms majestically' turning, and the cupola of Carvel 
House shining white among the trees; and of the upper 
spars of the shipping, with sails neatly furled, lying at 
the long wharves, where the English wares Mr. Carvel 
had commanded for the return trip were unloading. Scarce 
was the pinnace brought into the wind before I had leaped 
ashore and greeted with a shout the Hall servants drawn 
up in a line on the green, grinning a welcome. Dorothy 
and I scampered over the grass and into the cool, wide 
house, resting awhile on the easy sloping steps within, hand 
in hand. And then away for that grand tour of inspection 
we had been so long planning together. How well I recall 
that sunny afternoon, when the shadows of the great 
oaks were just beginning to lengthen. Through the green- 
houses we marched, monarchs of all we surveyed, old 
Porphery, the gardener, presenting Mistress Dolly with a 
crown of orange blossoms, for which she thanked him with 
a pretty courtesy her governess had taught her. Were 
we not king and queen returned to our summer palace? 
And Spot and Silver and Song and Knipe, the wolf-hound, 
were our train, though not as decorous as rigid etiquette 
demanded, since they were forever running after the butter- 
flies. On v/e went through the stiff, box-bordered walks 
of the garden, past the weather-beaten sun-dial and the 
spinning-house and the smoke-house to the stables. Here 
old Harvey, who had taught me to ride Captain Daniel's 
pony, is equerry, and young Harvey our personal atten- 
dant; old Harvey smiles as we go in and out of the stalls 
rubbing the noses of our trusted friends, and gives a gruff 
but kindly warning as to Cassandra's heels. He recalls my 
father at the same age. 

Jonas Tree the carpenter, sits sunning himself on his 
bench before the shop, but mysteriously disappears when 
he sees us, and returns presently with a little ship he has 



Later and Present- Day Writers 357 

fashioned for me that winter, all complete with spars and 
sails, for Jonas was a ship-wright on the Severn in the old 
country before he came as a King's passenger to the new. 
Dolly and I are off directly to the backwaters of the river, 
where the new boat is launched with due ceremony as the 
Conqueror, his Majesty's latest ship-of-the-hne. . . . 

How short those summer days ! All too short for the 
girl and boy who had so much to do in them. The sun 
rising over the forest often found us peeping through the 
bUnds, and when he sank into the Bay at night, we were 
still running, tired but happy, and begging patient Hester 
for half an hour more. "Lawd, Marse Dick," I can hear 
her say, ''you and Miss Dolly's been on yo' feet since de 
dawn. And so's I, honey." 

And so we had. We would spend whole days on the 
wharves. . . . Often we would mount together on the 
little horse Captain Daniel had given me, Dorothy on a 
pillion behind, to go with my grandfather to inspect the 
farm. . . . 

And all this time I was busily wooing Mistress Dolly; 
but she, little minx, would give me no satisfaction. I see 
her standing among the strawberries, her black hair waving 
in the wind, and her red lips redder still from the stain. 
And the sound of her childish voice comes back to me now 
after all these years. And this was my first proposal : — 

"Dorothy, when you grow up and I grow up, you will 
marry me, and I shall give you all these strawberries." 

"I will marry none but a soldier," says she, "and a great 
man." 

"Then I will be a soldier," I cried, "and greater than 
the Governor himself." And I beHeved it. 

"Papa says I shall marry an earl," retorts Dorothy, 
with a toss of her pretty head. 

"There are no earls among us," I exclaimed hotly. . . . 
"Our earls are those who have made their own way, like 
my grandfather." For I had lately heard Captain Clap- 
saddle say this and much more on the subject. But 
Dorothy turned up her nose. 

"I shall go home when I am eighteen," she said, "and 



358 American Literature 

I shall meet his Majesty, the King." And to such an 
argument I found no logical answer. 

Mr. Marmaduke Manners and his lady came to fetch 
Dorothy home. He was a foppish little gentleman who 
thought more of the cut of his waistcoat than of the affairs 
of the province, and would rather have been bidden to 
lead the assembly ball than to sit in council with his Excel- 
lency the Governor. ... He had little in common with 
my grandfather, whose chief business and pleasure was to 
promote industry on his farm. Mr. Marmaduke was 
wont to rise at noon, and knew not wheat from barley, or 
good leaf from bad; liis hands he kept like a lady's, render- 
ing them almost useless by the long lace on the sleeves, 
and his chief pastime was card-playing. . . . 

Of Mrs. Manners I shall say more by and by. I took 
a mischievous deUght in giving Mr. Manners every annoy- 
ance my boyish fancy could conceive. The evening of his 
arrival he and Mr. Carvel set out for a stroll about the 
house, Mr. Marmaduke mincing his steps, for it had rained 
that morning. And presently they came upon the wind- 
mill with its long arms moving lazily in the Hght breeze, 
near touching the ground as they passed, for the mill was 
built in the Dutch fashion. I know not what moved me, 
but hearing Mr. Manners carelessly humming a minuet 
while my grandfather explained the usefulness of the mill, 
I seized hold of one of the long arms as it swung by, and 
before the gentlemen could prevent, was carried slowly 
upwards. Dorothy screamed, and her father stood stock 
still with amazement and fear, Mr. Carvel being the only 
one who kept his presence of mind. "Hold on tight, 
Richard!" I heard him cry. It was dizzy riding, though 
the motion was not great, and before I had reached the 
right angle I regretted my rashness. I caught a glimpse 
of the Bay with the red sun on it, and as I turned saw far 
below me the white figure of Ivie Rawlinson, the Scotch 
miller, who had run out. "O haith!" he shouted, "Haud 
fast, Mr. Richard!" And so I clung tightly and came 
down without much inconvenience, though indifferently 
glad to feel the ground again. 



Later and Present- Day Writeis 359 

Mr. Marmaduke, as I expected, was in a great temper, 
and swore he had not had such a fright for years. He 
looked for Mr. Carvel to cane me stoutly. But Ivie 
laughed heartily and said: "I wad ye'll gang far for anither 
laddie wi' the spunk, Mr. Manners," and with a sly look at 
my grandfather, *'Ilka day we hae some sic whigmeleery." 

I think Mr. Carvel was not ill-pleased with the feat, or 
with Mr. Marmaduke's way of taking it. For afterwards 
I overheard him telling the story to Colonel Lloyd, and both 
gentlemen laughing over Mr. Manners's discomfiture. 

21. Jack London (1876- ) is a promising young writer 
of the West. The Call of the Wild first brought his name before 
the public. He has since written many other stories both long 
and short. 

To THE Death 
(From The Call of the Wild, Chapter III) 

. . . Spitz, cold and calculating even in his supreme 
moods, left the pack and cut across a narrow neck of land 
where the creek made a long bend around. Buck did not 
know of this, and as he rounded the bend, the frost wraith 
of a rabbit still flitting before him, he saw another and 
larger frost wraith leap from the overhanging bank into 
the immediate path of the rabbit. It was Spitz. The 
rabbit could not turn, and as the white teeth broke its 
back in mid air it shrieked as loudly as a stricken man 
may shriek. . . . 

Buck did not cry out. He did not check himself, but 
drove in upon Spitz, shoulder to shoulder, so hard that he 
missed the throat. They rolled over and over in the 
powdery snow. Spitz gained his feet almost as though he 
had not been overthrown, slashing Buck down the shoulder 
and leaping clear. Twice his teeth clipped together, like 
the steel jaws of a trap, as he backed away for better 
footing, with lean and lifting lips that writhed and snarled. 

In a flash Buck knew it. The time had come. It was 
to the death. As they circled about, snarling, ears laid 
back, keenly watchful for the advantage, the scene came 



360 American Literature 

to Buck with a sense of familiarity. He seemed to re- 
member it all, — the white woods, and earth, and moon- 
light, and the thrill of battle. Over the whiteness and 
silence brooded a ghostly calm. ... It was as though it 
had always been, the wonted way of things. 

Spitz was a practised fighter. . . . He never rushed till 
he was prepared to receive a rush; never attacked till he 
had first defended that attack. 

In vain Buck strove to sink his teeth in the neck of the 
big white dog. Wherever his fangs struck for the softer 
flesh, they were countered by the fangs of Spitz. Fang 
clashed fang, and hps were cut and bleeding, but Buck 
could not penetrate his enemy's guard. Then he warmed 
up and enveloped Spitz in a whirlwind of rushes. Time 
and time again he tried for the snow-white throat, where 
life bubbled near to the surface, and each time and every 
time Spitz slashed him and got away. Then Buck took to 
rushing, as though for the throat, when, suddenly drawing 
back his head and curving in from the side, he would drive 
his shoulder at the shoulder of Spitz, as a ram by which to 
overthrow him. But instead Buck's shoulder was slashed 
down each time as Spitz leaped Hghtly away. 

Spitz was untouched, while Buck was streaming with 
blood and panting hard. The fight was growing desper- 
ate. And all the while the silent and wolfish circle waited 
to finish off whichever dog went down. As Buck grew 
winded. Spitz took to rushing, and he kept him staggering 
for footing. Once Buck went over, and the whole circle 
of sixty dogs started up; but he recovered himself, almost 
in mid air, and the circle sank down again and waited. 

But Buck possessed a quaHty that made for greatness 
— imagination. He fought by instinct, but he could fight 
by head as well. He rushed, as though attempting the 
old shoulder trick, but at the last instant swept low to the 
snow and in. His teeth closed on Spitz's left fore leg. 
There was a crunch of breaking bone, and the white dog 
faced him on three legs. Thrice he tried to knock him 
over, then repeated the trick and broke the right fore leg. 
Despite the pain and helplessness, Spitz struggled madly 



Later and Present- Day Writers 361 

to keep up. He saw the silent circle, with gleaming eyes, 
lolhng tongues and silvery breaths drifting upward, closing 
in upon him as he had seen similar circles close in upon 
beaten antagonists in the past. Only this time he was 
the one who was beaten. 

There was no hope for him. Buck was inexorable. 
Mercy was a thing reserved for gentler climes. He ma- 
noeuvred for the final rush. The circle had tightened till 
he could feel the breaths of the huskies on his flanks. He 
could see them, beyond Spitz and to either side, half crouch- 
ing for the spring, their eyes fixed upon him. A pause 
seemed to fall. Every animal was motionless as though 
turned to stone. Only Spitz quivered and bristled as he 
staggered back and forth, snarling with horrible menace, 
as though to frighten off impending death. Then Buck 
sprang in and out; but while he was in, shoulder had at 
last squarely met shoulder. The dark circle became a 
dot on the moon-flooded snow as Spitz disappeared from 
view. Buck stood and looked on, the successful champion, 
the dominant primordial beast who had made his kill and 
found it good. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

I. For Further Illustration 

Burnett, F. H.: Editha's Burglar. -■ 
My Robin. -- 
The Secret Garden. 
Through One Administration. 
Cable, G. W.: Old Creole Days. 
-Churchill, Winston: Coniston. 

Richard Carvel. 
■Davis, R. H.: The Hungry Man was Fed. (In Van Bibber and 
Others.) 
Love Me, Love my Dog. (In Van Bibber and Others.) 
The Red Cross Girl. 
Deland, M. W.: Old Chej ter Tales. 

The Voice. 
Fox, John, Jr. : The Trail of the Lonesome Pine. 



362 American Literature 

Freeman, Mary E. Wilkins: A New England Nun and Other Stories. 

Silence and Other Stories. 
Garland, H.: Main Travelled Roads. 

Rose of Butcher's Coolly. 
Harris, J. C.: Uncle Remus, His Songs and Sayings. 
Howells, W. D.: The Elevator. (In The Sleeping Car and Other 
Farces.) 

The Rise of Silas Lapham. 

Mrs. Johnson. (In Suburban Sketches.) 

A Memory that Worked Overtime. (In Between the Dark and 
the Daylight.) 

The Story of the Author's Life. (In The Howells Story Book, 
by Mildred Howells and Mary E. Burt.) 
James, H. R.: ^ Passionate Pilgrim. (In A Passionate Pilgrim.) ' 

The Madonna of the Future. (In A Passionate Pilgrim.) 

Daisy Miller. 
London, Jack: The Call of the Wild. 
Murfree, M. N.: The Young Mountaineers. 

The Raid of the Guerilla. 
Norris, F. : The Octopus. 

The Pit. 
Page, t. N.: Red Rock. 

Under the Crust. (Short stories.) 
Porter, W. S. (O. Henry) : The Hiding of Black Bill. (In Options.) 

The Voice of the City. (Short stories.) 
Seton, Ernest Thompson: Lives of the Hunted. 

Wild Animals I Have Known. 
Smith, F. H.: Colonel Carter of Cartersville. 

The Arm Chair at the Inn. (Short storied.) 

The Woodfire in No. J. (Short stories.) 
Stuart, R. McE.: A Golden Wedding and Other Tales. 

George Washington Jones. 

Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches. 
Wharton, E.: Italian Backgrounds. 

II. Prose — Non-Fiction 

I. Lyman Abbott (1835- ), editor of The Outlook, is a 
New York preacher and ethical teacher of note. His editorials 
are widely read. The following introduction to his article on 
the Open Shop is a splendid illustration of clear, logical reason- 
ing. 



Later and Present-Day Writers 363 

The Open Shop 

(From an unsigned editorial which appeared in The Outlook, July 
1 6, 1904) 

Our object in this article is, first, to define the issue 
joined between the ''open shop" and the "closed shop"; 
and, secondly, to give our judgment on that issue and the 
reasons upon which it is based. 

An open shop is one in which union men and non-union 
men may work side by side upon equal terms. A closed 
shop is one from which either union men are excluded by 
the employer, or non-union men are excluded by the union ; 
but, ordinarily, the term is applied only to those shops 
which are closed against non-union men by the refusal of 
union men to work with them. It is in that sense we use 
the phrase in this article. Are trades-unions justified in 
insisting upon the closed shop — in insisting, that is, upon 
the exclusion from the industry in which they are engaged 
of all workingmen who do not belong to the union? 

The arguments for the closed shop deserve careful con- 
sideration; they may be briefly stated thus: Workingmen 
have a right to choose with whom they shall work, as well 
as under whom they shall work. Sometimes the industry 
is made extra-hazardous by the employment of an incom- 
petent workingman; often it is made extra-difficult. For 
this reason a fireman has a right to refuse to work with a 
green locomotive engineer, or a locomotive engineer with 
a green fireman. But a workman has a right to protect 
not only his life, but also his feeling. He has the right to 
refuse to work in the intimacy of a common employment 
with a man who is persona non grata; and there is a real 
reason why the non-union man is persona non grata to the 
union man. Without sharing the expenses or the obhga- 
tions of the union, he gets — in improved conditions, better 
wages, and shorter hours — all the benefits which the union 
secures from the employer. The union man has a right to 
refuse to work with a companion who takes all the advan- 
tages of the union without sharing its burdens. More- 
over, if the shop is open on equal terms to both union men 



364 American Literature 

and non-union men, the employer will be apt gradually to 
supplant the union men with non-union men because 
it is easy to increase the hours and reduce the wages where 
there is no union to interpose organized resistance to such 
industrial injustice. Finally, the object of the union is 
not merely to get larger wages, lessened hours, and better 
conditions. The workingman denies the assumed right 
of the employer to manage his business as he pleases. He 
insists that the employer and employed are partners in a 
common enterprise, and that the employee has a right to 
be consulted as to the conditions of the work, and to share 
in its prosperity when it is prosperous, as he is certain to 
share in its adversity when it is unprosperous. The object 
of the union is to secure a real co-operation for the working- 
man with the employer, on something like equal terms. 
This can be done only by "collective bargaining"; that 
is, by an agreement entered into by a body of workingmen 
acting together as a union, with the employer, who is gen- 
erally a body of capitalists acting together in a corporation. 
Only thus can democratization of industry be secured and 
the autocracy of industry be ended; and this result is 
indispensable in order to bring the industrial organization 
of America into harmony with its poHtical, educational, 
and rehgious organizations. 

These considerations seem to us to furnish very good 
reasons for the organization of labor. But do they also 
furnish good reasons for compelling workingmen to join 
organizations of labor against their will? For the real 
question at issue between the closed shop and the open 
shop is not. Shall labor organize in order to deal on terms 
of greater equahty with organized capital? but, Shall the 
laborer be' compelled to join such organization in order to 
get opportunity to labor ? 

This question is really two questions: Is the closed shop 
illegal? If not illegal, is it against the public interest, 
and therefore and to that extent immoral ? . . . 

2. John Burroughs (1837- ) was born in New York 
State. He is a lover of nature and a writer of essays, most of 



Later and Present-Day Winters 365 

which deal with out-of-door subjects. In a certain sense he 
may be called the successor of Thoreau. 

Nature in Poetry 

(From Introduction to Songs of Nature, edited by John Burroughs, 
1901) 

... I am surprised at the amount of so-called Nature 
poetry that has been added to English literature during 
the past fifty years, but I find only a Httle of it of perma- 
nent worth. The painted, padded, and perfumed Nature 
of so many of the younger poets I cannot stand at all. I 
have not knowingly admitted any poem that was not true 
to my own observations of Nature — or that diverged at 
all from the facts of the case. Thus, a poem that shows 
the swallow perched upon the barn in October I could not 
accept, because the swallow leaves us in August; or a 
poem that makes the chestnut bloom with the lilac — an 
instance I came across in my reading — would be ruled out 
on like grounds; or when I find poppies blooming in the 
corn in an American poem, as I several times have done, 
I pass by on the other side. 

In a bird poem I want the real bird as a basis — not 
merely a description of it, but its true place in the season 
and in the landscape, and no liberties taken with the facts 
of its life history. I must see or feel or hear the live bird 
in the verses, as one does in Wordsworth's "Cuckoo," or 
Emerson's "Titmouse," or Trowbridge's "Pewee." Lowell 
is not quite true to the facts when in one of his poems he 
makes the male oriole assist at nest building. The male 
may seem to superintend the work, but he does not actually 
lend a hand. Give me the real bird first, and then all the 
poetry that can be evoked from it. 

I am aware that there is another class of bird poems, or 
poems inspired by birds, such as Keats's "Ode to a Night- 
ingale," in which there is little or no natural history, not 
even of the sublimated kind, and yet that take high rank 
as poems. It is the "waking dream" in these poems, the 
translation of sensuous impressions into spiritual longings 
and attractions that is the secret of their power. When 



366 American Literature 

the poet can give us himself, we can well afford to miss 
the bird. . . . 

The one thing that makes a poem anyway is emotion 
— the emotion of love, of beauty, of sublimity — and these 
emotions playing about the reality result in the true Na- 
ture poetry, as in Wordsworth, Emerson, and Bryant. 
The poet is not so much to paint Nature as he is to recreate 
her. He interprets her when he infuses his own love into 
her. 

3. Hamilton Wright Mabie (1845- ) is a delightful 
essay writer. He is connected with the editorial department 
of The Outlook. 

The Feeling for Literature 

(From Books and Culture, Chapter V) 

The importance of reading habitually the best books 
becomes apparent when one remembers that taste depends 
very largely on the standards with which we are familiar, 
and that the ability to enjoy the best and only the best 
is conditioned upon intimate acquaintance with the best. 
The man who is thrown into constant association with 
inferior work either revolts against his surroundings or 
suffers a disintegration of aim and standard, which per- 
ceptibly lowers the plane on which he Hves. In either case 
the power of enjoyment from contact with a genuine piece 
of creative work is sensibly diminished, and may be finally 
lost. The delicacy of the mind is both precious and per- 
ishable; it can be preserved only by associations which 
confirm and satisfy it. For this reason, among others, the 
best books are the only books which a man bent on culture 
should read; inferior books not only waste his time, but 
they dull the edge of his perception and diminish his ca« 
pacity for delight. 

This delight, born afresh of every new contact of the 
mind with a real book, furnishes indubitable evidence that 
the reader has the feeling for literature, — a possession much 
rarer than is commonly supposed. It is no injustice to 
say that the majority of those who read have no feeling 



Later and Present- Day Winters 367 

for literature; their interest is awakened or sustained not 
by the literary quality of a book, but by some element of 
brightness or novelty, or by the charm of narrative. Read- 
ing which finds its reward in these tilings is entirely legiti- 
mate, but is not the kind of reading which secures culture. 
It adds largely to one's stock of information, and it re- 
freshes the mind by introducing new objects of interest; 
but it does not minister directly to the refining and ma- 
turing of the nature. The same book may be read in 
entirely different ways and with entirely different results. 
One may, for instance, read Shakespeare's historical plays 
simply for the story element which runs through them, 
and for the interest which the skilful use of that element 
excites; and in such a reading there will be distinct gain 
for the reader. This is the way in which a healthy boy 
generally reads these plays for the first time. From such 
a reading one will get information and refreshment; more 
than one EngHsh statesman has confessed that he owed 
his knowledge of certain periods of English history largely 
to Shakespeare. On the other hand, one may read these 
plays for the joy of the art that is in them, and for the en- 
richment which comes fr ot it contact with the deep and 
tumultuous life which throbs through them; and this is the 
kind of reading which produces culture, the reading which 
means enlargement and ripening. 

The feehng for literature, like the feehng for art in gen- 
eral, is not only susceptible of cultivation, but very quickly 
responds to appeals which are made to it by noble or 
beautiful objects. It is essentially a feehng, but it is a 
feehng which depends very largely on intelligence; it is 
strengthened and made sensitive and responsive by con- 
stant contact with those objects which call it out. No 
rules can be laid down for its development save the very 
simple rule to read only and always those books which are 
literature. It is impossible to give specific directions for 
the cultivation of the feeling for Nature. It is not to be 
gotten out of text-books of any kind; it is not to be found 
in botanies or geologies or works on zoology; it is to be 
gotten only out of familiarity with Nature herself. Daily 



3G8 American Literature 

fellowship with landscapes, trees, skies, birds, with an open 
mind and in a receptive mood, soon develops in one a kind 
of spiritual sense which takes cognizance of things not 
seen before and adds a new joy and resource to hfe. In 
like manner the feeling for literature is quickened and 
nourished by intimate acquaintance with books of beauty 
and power. Such an intimacy makes the sense of delight 
more keen, preserves it against influences which tend to 
deaden it, and makes the taste more sure and trustwor- 
thy. A man who has long had acquaintance with the 
best in any department of art comes to have, almost un- 
consciously to himself, an instinctive power of discerning 
good work from bad, of recognizing on the instant the 
sound and true method and style, and of feeling a fresh 
and constant delight in such work. His education comes 
not by didactic, but by vital methods. 

4. Agnes Repplier (1857- ) was born in Philadelphia. 
She has made an enviable name for herself in the world of let- 
ters through her dehghtful essays. (For readings, see Bibliog- 
raphy, page 414.) 

5. Theodore Roosevelt (iSsAjUl), President of the United 
States from 1901 to 1909,' wkSnroVmn New York City. He 
held many public offices before he became President, serving as 
police commissioner of New York City, member of the United 
States Civil Service Commission, Assistant Secretary of the 
Navy, during the first administration of President McKinley, 
Governor of New York, and Vice-President until the assassina- 
tion of President McKinley, when he became President. When 
the Spanish- American War broke out in 1898 he resigned his 
post as Assistant Secretary of the Navy and took an active 
part in the war. He is a great traveller and hunter of big game, 
a vigorous speaker, and a prolific writer — biography, history, 
and travel being his chief fields. The Winning of the West is, 
perhaps, his best-known book. 

Justice vs. Viintdictiveness 

(Speech made at Oyster Bay, New York, July 4, 1906) 

Mr. Chairman and you, my old friends and neighbors, 
you among whom I was brought up, and with whom I 



Later and Present- Day Writers 369 

have lived for so many years, it is a real and glorious plea- 
sure to have the chance of being with you to-day, to say a 
few words of greeting to you, and in a sense to give an 
account of my stewardship. I say ''in a sense," friends, 
because, after all, the stewardship really has to give an 
account of itself. If a man needs to explain overmuch 
what he has done, it is pretty sure proof that he ought to 
have done it a little differently, and so as regards most of 
what I have done I must let it speak for itself. 

But there are two or three things about which I want to 
talk to you to-day and if, in the presence of the dominies, ^ 
I may venture to speak from a text, I shall take as my text 
the words of Abraham Lincoln which he spoke in a remark- 
able little address delivered to a band of people who were 
serenading him at the White House just after his reelec- 
tion to the Presidency. He said (I quote from memory 
only): "In any great national trial hereafter, the men of 
that day as compared with those of this will be as weak 
and as strong, as silly and as wise, as bad and as good. 
Let us, therefore, study the incidents of this as philosophy 
from which to learn wisdom, and not as wrong to be 
avenged." And he added later in the speech a touching 
and characteristic expression of his, saying, "So long as I 
have been here I have not willingly planted a thorn in any 
man's breast." 

It is in just that spirit that we, as a nation, if we possess 
the power of learning aright the lessons to be taught us by 
Lincoln's life, will approach problems of to-day. We have 
not got the same problems nor as great problems as those 
with which the men of Lincoln's generation were brought 
face to face, and yet our problems are real and great, and 
upon the way in which we solve them will depend whether 
or not our children have cause to feel pride or shame as 
American citizens. If Lincoln and the men of his genera- 
tion, the men who followed Grant in the field, who upheld . 
the statesmanship of Lincoln himself in the council chamber 
— if these men had not done their full duty, not a man 
here would carry his head high as an American citizen. 

We have heard a great deal during the past year or two 



370 American Literature 

of the frightful iniquities in our politics and our business 
life, the frightful wrongdoing in our social life. Now 
there is plenty of iniquity, in business, in politics, in our 
social life. There is every warrant for our acknowledging 
these great evils. 

But there is no warrant for growing hysterical about 
them. It is a poor trick to spend nine tenths of the time 
in saying that there never was such iniquity as is shown 
in this nation; and the remaining tenth in saying that we 
are the most remarkable nation that ever existed. We 
want to be more careful in blaming ourselves and more 
careful in praising ourselves. Overemphasis in praise, as 
well as overemphasis in blame, is apt to overreach itself; 
just as the man who promises too much — especially on 
the stump — is apt to strike the balance by performing too 
little. It is true that there is much evil; but in speaking 
about it do not let us lose our heads; and, above all, let 
us avoid the wild vindictiveness preached by certain dema- 
gogues — the vindictiveness as far as the poles asunder 
from the wise charity of Abraham Lincoln. 

The poorest of all emotions for any American citizen to 
feel is the emotion of hatred toward his fellows. Let him 
feel a just and righteous indignation where that just and 
righteous indignation is called for; let him not hesitate to 
inflict punishment where the punishment is needed in the 
interest of the public, but let him beware of demanding 
mere vengeance, and above all of inviting the masses of 
the people to such demand. Such a demand is alike un- 
christian and un-American, and the man who makes it is 
false to the highest duties, principles, and privileges of 
American citizenship. 

There is wrong and enough to fight. Fight it, cut it 
out, and, having cut it out, go your ways without either 
hatred or exultation over those at whose expense it has 
been necessary that it should be cut out. There are plenty of 
wrongs done by men of great means, and there are plenty of 
wrongs done by men of small means. Another sentence 
of Abraham Lincoln's which it is well to remember is, 
"There is a deal of human nature in mankind." If a man 



Late?' and Present- Day Writers 371 

possesses a twisted morality, he will show that twisted 
morality wherever he happens to be. If he is not a man 
of really twisted morals, but an ordinary happy-go-lucky 
individual who does not think very deeply, he will often 
do what ought not to be done, if nobody brings home his 
duty to him, and if the chances are such as to render easy 
wrongdoing. 

This year in Congress our chief task has been to carry 
the government forward along the course which I think 
it might follow consistently for a number of years to come 
— that is, in the direction of seeking on behalf of the people 
as a whole, through the national government, which rep- 
resents the people as a whole, to exercise a measure of 
supervision, control, and restraint over the individuals, and 
especially over the corporations, of great wealth, in so far 
as the business use of that wealth brings it within the 
reach of the federal government. We have accomplished 
a fair amount, and the reason that we have done so has 
been, in the first place, because we have not tried to do 
too much, and, in the next place, because we have ap- 
proached the task absolutely free from any spirit of rancor 
or hatred. 

When it becomes necessary to curb a great corporation, 
curb it. I will do my best to help you, but I will do it in 
no spirit of anger or hatred to the men who own or control 
that corporation, and if any seek in their turn to do wrong 
to the men of means, to do wrong to the men who own 
these corporations, I will turn around and fight for them in 
defense of their rights just as hard as I fight against them 
when I think they are doing wrong. 

Distrust as a demagogue the man who talks only of the 
wrong done by the men of wealth. Distrust as a dema- 
gogue the man who measures iniquity by the purse. Mea- 
sure iniquity by the heart, whether a man's purse be full 
or empty, partly full or partly empty. If the man is a 
decent man, whether well off or not, stand by him; if he 
is not a decent man, stand against him, whether he be rich 
or poor. Stand against him in no spirit of vengeance, 
but only with the resolute purpose to make him act as 



372 American Literature 

decent citizens must act if this republic is to be and to 
become what it should. 

6. Booker T. Washington (i858-\^^-'?), the most famous 
negro of the day, is carrying on a great work for the elevation 
of his race at Tuskeegee, an industrial school which he founded. 
He has delivered many addresses both in this country and abroad 
and has published many articles and essays, his one theme 
being the negro. 

The Better Part 

(A speech delivered at the Thanksgiving Peace Jubilee Exercises, 
Chicago, October i6, 1898) 

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: On an important 
occasion in the life of the Master, when it fell to Him to 
pronounce judgment on two courses of action, these 
memorable words fell from his lips: "And Mary hath 
chosen the better part." This was the supreme test in 
the case of an individual ! It is the highest test in the case 
of a race or nation. Let us apply this test to the American 
negro. 

In the life of our repubhc, when he has had the oppor- 
tunity to choose, has it been the better or worse part? 
When, in the childhood of this nation, the negro was asked 
to submit to slavery or choose death and extinction, as 
did the aborigines, he chose the better part, that which 
perpetuated the race. 

When, in 1776, the negro was asked to decide between 
British oppression and American independence, we find 
him choosing the better part, and Crispus Attucks, a 
negro, was the first to shed his blood on State Street, Bos- 
ton, that the white American might enjoy liberty forever, 
though his race remained in slavery. 

When, in 18 14, at New Orleans, the test of patriotism 
came again, we find the negro choosing the better part, 
and General Andrew Jackson himself testifying that no 
heart was more loyal and no arm more strong and useful 
in defence of righteousness. 

When the long and memorable struggle came between 



Later and Present- Day Writers 373 

union and separation, when he knew that victory on the 
one hand meant freedom, and defeat on the other his con- 
tinued enslavement, with a full knowledge of the porten- 
tous meaning of it all, when the suggestion and the temp- 
tation came to burn the home and massacre wife and 
children during the absence of the master in battle, and 
thus ensure his liberty, we find him choosing the better 
part, and for four long years protecting and supporting 
the helpless, defenceless ones entrusted to his care. 

When, in 1863, the cause of the Union seemed to quiver 
in the balance, and there was doubt and distrust, the negro 
was asked to come to the rescue in arms, and the valor 
displayed at Fort Wagner and Port Hudson and Fort 
Pillow, testify most eloquently again that the negro chose 
the better part. 

When, a few months ago, the safety and honor of the 
republic were threatened by a foreign foe, ... we find 
the negro forgetting his own wrongs, forgetting the laws 
and customs that discriminate against him in his own 
country, and again we find our black citizen choosing the 
better part. And if you would know how he deported 
himself in the field at Santiago, apply for answer to Shat- 
ter and Roosevelt and Wheeler. Let them tell how the 
negro faced death and laid down his life in defence of 
honor and humanity, and when you have gotten the full 
story of the heroic conduct of the negro in the Spanish- 
American war . . . then decide within yourselves whether 
a race that is thus willing to die for its country should not 
be given the highest opportunity to live for its country. 



This country has been most fortunate in her victories. 
. . . All this is well; it is magnificent. But there remains 
one other victory for Americans to win — a victory as far- 
reaching and important as any that has occupied our army 
and navy. We have succeeded in every conflict, except 
the effort to conquer ourselves in blotting out of racial 
prejudices. . . . Let us be as generous in peace as we have 
been brave in battle. Until we thus conquer ourselves, I 



374 American Literature 

make no empty statement when I say that we shall have, 
especially in the southern part of our country, a cancer 
gnawing at the heart of the republic, that shall one day 
prove as dangerous as an attack from an army without or 
within. 



I know how vain and impotent is all abstract talk on 
this subject. In your efforts to "rise on stepping stones 
of your dead selves," we of the black race shall not leave 
you unaided. We shall make the task easier for you by 
acquiring property, habits of thrift, economy, intelligence, 
and character, by each making himself of individual worth 
in his own community. We shall aid you in this as we 
did a few days ago at El Caney and Santiago, when we 
helped you to hasten the peace we here celebrate. You 
know us; you are not afraid of us. When the crucial test 
comes, you are not ashamed of us. We have never be- 
trayed or deceived you. You know that as it has been, 
so it will be. Whether in war or in peace, whether in 
slavery or in freedom, we have always been loyal to the 
Stars and Stripes. 

7. "William J. Bryan (i860- ) was born in Salem, Illinois. 
He is a great political leader who has been the Democratic 
nominee for President three times. At present (1914) he is 
Secretary of State. He is famous as a lecturer and is probably 
the most eloquent of living American orators. He is editor of 
The Commoner, a political weekly published in Lincoln, Ne- 
braska. 

The White Man's Burden 

(From an address delivered before the American Society, London, 
July 4, 1906) 

Our English friends, under whose flag we meet to-night, 
recalling that this is the anniversary of our nation's birth, 
would doubtless pardon us if our rejoicing contained some- 
thing of self-congratulation, for it is at such times as this 



Later and Present- Day Writers 375 

that we are wont to review those national achievements 
which have given to the United States its prominence 
among the nations. 

But I hope I shall not be thought lacking in patriotic 
spirit if, instead of drawing a picture of the past, bright 
with heroic deeds and unparalleled in progress, I summon 
you rather to a serious consideration of the responsibility 
resting upon those nations which aspire to premiership. 
This Hne of thought is suggested by a sense of propriety 
as well as by recent experiences — by a sense of propriety 
because such a subject will interest the Briton as well as 
the American, and by recent experiences because they have 
impressed me not less with our national duty than with 
the superiority of Western over Eastern civilization. 

Asking your attention to such a theme, it is not unfitting 
to adopt a phrase coined by a poet to whom America as 
well as England can lay some claim, and take for my text 
"The White Man's Burden." 

Take up the White Man's burden — 
In patience to abide, 
To veil the threat of terror 
And check the show of pride. 
By open speech and simple, 

An hundred times made plain, 
To seek another's profit, 
And work another's gain. 

Thus sings Kipling, and, with the exception of the third 
line (of the meaning of which I am not quite sure), the 
stanza embodies the thought which is uppermost in my 
mind to-night. No one can travel among the dark- 
skinned races of the Orient without feeling that the white 
man occupies an especially favored position among the 
children of men, and the recognition of this fact is accom- 
panied by the conviction that there is a duty inseparably 
connected with the advantages enjoyed. There is a white 
man's burden — a burden which the white man should 
not shirk even if he could, a burden which he could not 



376 American Literature 

shirk even if he would. That no one ''Hveth unto himself 
or dieth unto himself" has a national as well as an in- 
dividual application. Our destinies are so interwoven 
that each exerts an influence directly or indirectly upon 
all others. 

Among the blessings which the Christian nations are 
at this time able — ^and in duty bound — to carry to the 
rest of the world, I may mention five: education, knowledge 
of the science of government, arbitration as a substitute 
for war, appreciation of the dignity of labor, and a high 
conception of life. 

In India, in the Phihppines, in Egypt, and even in Tur- 
key statistics show a gradual extension of education, and 
I trust I will be pardoned if I say that neither the armies 
nor the navies, nor yet the commerce of our nations, have 
given us so just a claim to the gratitude of the people of 
Asia as have our school-teachers, sent, many of them, by 
private rather than by public funds. 

The Christian nations must lead the movement for the 
promotion of peace, not only because they are enhsted 
under the banner of the Prince of Peace, but also because 
they have attained such a degree of intelligence that they 
can no longer take pride in a purely physical victory. 

Our country has reason to congratulate itself upon the 
success of President Roosevelt in hastening peace between 
Russia and Japan. Through him our nation won a moral 
victory more glorious than a victory in war. King Ed- 
ward has also shown himself a promoter of arbitration, 
and a large number of members of Parhament are enhsted 
in the same work. It means much that the two great 
Enghsh speaking nations are thus arrayed on the side of 
peace. 

Society has passed through a period of aggrandizement, 
the nations taking what they had the strength to take and 
holding what they had the power to hold. But we are 
already entering a second era — an era in which the na- 
tions discuss not merely what they can do, but what they 
should do, considering justice to be more important than 
physical prowess. In tribunals hke that of The Hague, 



Later and Present- Day Writers 377 

the chosen representatives of the nations weigh questions 
of right and wrong, and give a small nation an equal hear- 
ing with great and a decree according to conscience. This 
marks an immeasurable advance. 

But is another step yet to be taken ? Justice after all is 
cold and pulseless, a negative virtue. The world needs 
something warmer, more generous. Harmlessness is bet- 
ter than harmfulness, but positive helpfulness is vastly 
superior to harmlessness, and we still have before us a 
larger, higher destiny of service. 

Even now there are signs of the approach of this third 
era, not so much in the actions of governments as in the 
growing tendency of men and women in many lands to 
contribute their means, in some cases their lives, to the 
intellectual and moral awakening of those who sit in dark- 
ness. Nowhere are these signs more abundant than in our 
own beloved land. Before the sun sets on one of these new 
centers of civilization it arises upon another. 

While in America and in Europe there is much to be cor- 
rected and abundant room for improvement, there has 
never been so much altruism in the world as there is to-day 
— never so many who acknowledge the indissoluble tie that 
binds each to every other member of the race. I have 
felt more pride in my own countrymen than ever before 
as I have visited the circuit of schools, hospitals, and 
churches which American money has built around the 
world. The example of the Christian nations, though but 
feebly reflecting the light of the Master, is gradually re- 
forming society. 

On the walls of the temple at Karnak an ancient artist 
carved a picture of an Egyptian king. He is represented 
as holding a group of captives by the hair — one hand 
raising a club as if to strike them. No king would be will- 
ing to confess himself so cruel to-day. In some of the 
capitals of Europe there are monuments built from, or 
ornamented with, cannon taken in war. That form of 
boasting is still tolerated, but let us hope that it will in 
time give way to some emblem of victory which will imply 
helpfulness rather than slaughter. 



378 American Literature 

8. Finley Peter Dunne (1867- ) was for some years a 
journalist in Chicago. He is famous for his humorous comments 
on current events under the name of Mr. Dooley. 

Books 
(From Mr. Dooley Says) 

"Well, sir, if there's wan person in th' wurruld that I 
really invoy 'tis me frind th' ex-prisidint iv Harvard. What 
a wondherful thing is youth. Old fellows like ye'ersilf an' 
me make a bluff about th' avantages iv age. But we know 
there's nawthing in it. We have wisdom but we wud 
rather have hair. We have expeeryence, but we wud 
thrade all iv its lessons f'r hope and teeth. 

"It makes me cross to see mesilf settin' here takin' a 
post-grajate coorse in our cillybrated univarsity iv th' 
Wicked Wurruld an' watching th' freshmen comin' in. 
How happy they are but how seeryous. How sure they 
are iv iverything. Us old fellows are sure iv nawthin'; we 
laugh but we are not cheerful; but we have no romance 
about th' colledge. Ye don't hear us givin' nine long cheers 
f'r our almy mather. We ain't even thankful f'r th' lessons 
it teaches us or th' wallops it hands us whin we f 'rget what 
we've been taught. We're a sad lot iv old la-ads, hatin' 
th' school, but hatin' th' gradjation exercises aven more. 

"But 'tis a rale pleasure to see th' bright-faced freshmen 
comin' in an' I welcome th' last young fellow fr'm Harvard 
to our vin'rable institution. I like to see these earnest, 
clear-eyed la-ads comin' in to waken th' echoes iv our grim 
walls with their young voices. I'm sure th' other undher- 
gradjates will like him. He hasn't been spoiled be bein' 
th' star iv his school f'r so long. Charles seems to me to 
be th' normal healthy boy. He does exactly what all 
freshmen in our univarsity do whin they enther. He tells 
people what books they shud read an' he invints a new 
relligon. Ivry well-ordhered la-ad has to get these two 
things out iv his system at wanst. 

"What books does he advise, says ye? I haven't got 
th' complete list yet, but what I seen iv it was good. 



Later and Present- Day Writers 379 

Speakin' f r mesilf alone, I don't read books. They are too 
stimylatin'. I can get th' wrong idees iv life fr'm dhrink. 
But I shud say that if a man was a confirmed book-reader, 
if he was a man that cuddent go to sleep without takin' a 
book an' if he read befure breakfast, I shud think that Dr. 
EHot's very old vatted books are comparatively harmless. 
They are sthrong, it is thrue. They will go to th' head. I 
wud advise a man who is aisily affected be books to stick 
to Archibald Clavering Gunter. But they will hurt no 
man who's used to readin'. He has sawed thim out care- 
fully. 'Give me me tools,' says he, 'an' I will saw out a 
five foot shelf iv books.' An' he done it. He has th' 
right idee. He real-izes that the first thing to have in a 
libry is a shelf. Fr'm time to time this can be decorated 
with lithrachure. But th' shelf is th' main thing. Other- 
wise th' Hbry may get mixed up with th' readin' matther 
on th' table. Th' shelf shud thin be nailed to th' wall 
iliven feet fr'm th' flure an' hermetically sealed. 

"What books does he riccomind? Iv course there's 
such folk-lore as Epicalaulus in Marsupia an' th' wurrks iv 
Hyperphrastus. But it shows how broad an' indulgent th' 
doctor's taste is that he has included Milton's Arryopatigica, 
if I have th' name right. This is what you might call 
summer readin'. I don't know how I cud describe it to 
ye, Hinnissy. Ye wuddent iiardly call it a detective story 
an' yet it aint a problem play. Areopapigica is a Greek 
gur-rl who becomes th' editor iv a daily newspaper. That 
is th' beginning iv th' plot. I won't tell ye how it comes 
out. I don't want to spile ye'er injymint iv it. But ye'll 
niver guess who committed th' crime. It is absolutely un- 
expicted. A most injanyous book an' wan iv th' best 
sellers in its day. There are four editions iv thirty copies 
each an' I don't know how manny paper-covered copies 
at fifty cents were printed f'r th' circulation on th' mail 
coaches. I'm not sure if it iver was dhramatized; if it 
wasn't there's a chanst f'r some manager. 

"Th' darin' rescue iv Areopatigica be Oliver Cromwell 
— but I won't tell ye. Ye must read it. There ar-re some 
awful comical things in it. I don't agree with Uncle Joe 



380 American Literature 

Cannon, who says it is trashy. It is Hght, perhaps, even 
frivolous. But it has gr-reat merit. I can't think iv any- 
thing that wud be more agreeable thin lyin' in a hammock, 
with a glass iv somethin' in ye'er hand on a hot day an' 
readin' this little jim iv pure English an' havin' a proffissor 
fr'm coUedge within aisy call to tell ye what it all meant. 
I niver go f'r a long journey without a copy iv Milton's 
Agropapitica in me pocket. I have lent it to brakemen 
an' they have invariably returned it. I have read it to men 
that wanted to fight me an' quited thim. 

" Yet how few people iv our day have read it ! I'll bet ye 
eight dollars that if ye wait till th' stores let out ye can go 
on th' sthreet an' out iv ivry ten men ye meet at laste two, 
an' I'll take odds on three, have niver aven heerd iv this 
pow'-ful thragedy. Yet while it was runnin' ye cudden't 
buy a copy iv th' Fireside Companyon an' f'r two cinchries 
it has proticted th' shelves iv more libries thin anny iv 
Milton's pomes, f'r Hogan tells me this author, who ye 
hardly iver hear mentioned in th' sthreet cars at th' prisint 
moment, was a pote as well as an author an' bHnd at that, 
an' what is more, held a prom'nent pollytickal job, I 
wondher if two hundred years fr'm now people will cease 
to talk iv Wi'Iliailb Jennings Bryan. He won't, but will 
they?" A 

There isv^a remS^bly brilliant group of university men 
still living who have done much for education not only 
as instructors and directors, but through their writings. 
And the literary style of their work qualifies it for notice 
in any history of American literature which includes pres- 
ent-day authors. Among them are several college presi- 
dents and many university professors. The selection made 
here is considered representative. ^^ 

9. Charles William Eliot (1834-%^), president emeritus 
of Harvard, is probably the most eminent living educator in 
America. He was chosen president o| Harvard in 1869 and 
held the position forty years. During that time he played an 



Later and Present- Day Writers 381 

important part in shaping American ideals of education. He 
has written many essays and books on educational subjects. 

John Gilley 

(From John Gilley, Maine Farmer and Fisherman) 

John Gilley's first venture was the purchase of a part 
of a small coasting schooner called the Preference, which 
could carry about one hundred tons, and cost between 
eight and nine hundred dollars. He became responsible 
for one-third of her value, paying down one or two hundred 
dollars, which his father probably lent him. For the rest 
of the third he obtained credit for a short time from the 
seller of the vessel. The other two owners were men who 
belonged on Great Cranberry Island. The owners pro- 
ceeded to use their purchase during all the mild weather 
— perhaps six months of each year — in carrying paving- 
stones to Boston. These stones, unlike the present rec- 
tangular granite blocks, were smooth cobblestones picked 
up on the outside beaches of the neighboring islands. They 
of course were not found on any inland or smooth-water 
beaches, but only where heavy waves rolled the beach- 
stones up and down. The crew of the Preference must 
therefore anchor her off an exposed beachf and then, with 
a large dory, boat off to her the stones whicli they picked 
up by hand. This work was possible. only during moderate 
weather. The stones must be of tolerably uniform size, 
neither too large nor too small; and each one had to be 
selected by the eye and picked up by the hand. When 
the dory was loaded, it had to be Hfted off the beach by 
the men standing in the water, and rowed out to the vessel; 
and there every single stone had to be picked up by hand 
and thrown on to the vessel. A hundred tons having been 
thus got aboard by sheer hard work of human muscle, the 
old craft, which was not too seaworthy, was sailed to 
Boston, to be discharged at what was then called the 
"Stone Wharf" in Charlestown. There the crew threw 
the stones out of her hold on to the wharf by hand. They 
therefore lifted and threw these hundred tons of stone 



382 American Literature 

three times at least before they were deposited on the 
city's wharf. The cobblestones were the main freight of 
the vessel; but she also carried dried fish to Boston, and 
fetched back goods to the island stores of the vicinity. 
Some of the island people bought their flour, sugar, dry- 
goods, and other family stores in Boston through the cap- 
tain of the schooner. John Gilley soon began to go as 
captain, being sometimes accompanied by the other owners 
and sometimes by men on wages. He was noted among 
his neighbors for the care and good judgment with which 
he executed their various commissions, and he knew him- 
self to be trusted by them. This business he followed for 
several years, paid off his debt to the seller of the schooner, 
and began to lay up money. It was an immense satisfaction 
to him to feel himself thus established in an honest business 
which he understood, and in which he was making his way. 
There are few soUder satisfactions to be won in this world 
by anybody, in any condition of Hfe. The scale of the 
business — large or small — makes little difference in the 
measure of content. 



In 1884 the extreme western point of Sutton's Island 
was sold to a "Westerner," a professor in Harvard College, 
and shortly after a second sale in the same neighborhood 
was effected; but it was not until 1886 that John Gilley 
made his first sale of land for summering purposes. In 
the next year he made another sale, and in 1894 a third. 
The prices he obtained, though moderate compared with 
the prices charged at Bar Harbor or North-East Harbor, 
were forty or fifty times any price which had ever been 
put on his farm by the acre. Being thus provided with 
what was for him a considerable amount of ready money, 
he did what all his hke do when they come into possession 
of ready money — he first gave himself and his family the 
pleasure of enlarging and improving his house and other 
buildings, and then lent the balance on small mortgages 
on village real estate. Suddenly he became a prosperous 
man, at ease, and a leader in his world. Up to this time, 



Later and Present- Day Writers 383 

since his second marriage, he had merely earned a com- 
fortable livelihood by diversified industry; but now he 
possessed a secured capital in addition to his farm and his 
buildings. At last, he was highly content, but neverthe- 
less ready as ever for new undertakings. His mind was 
active, and his eye and hand were steady. 

When three cottages had stood for several years on the 
eastern foreside of North-East Harbor, — the nearest point 
of the shore of Mount Desert to Sutton's Island, — John 
Gilley, at the age of seventy-one, undertook to deliver at 
these houses milk, eggs, and fresh vegetables every day, 
and chickens and fowls when they were wanted. This 
undertaking involved his rowing in all weathers nearly 
two miles from his cove to the landings of these houses, 
and back again, across bay waters which are protected 
indeed from the heavy ocean swells, but are still able to 
produce what the natives call "a big chop." Every morn- 
ing he arrived with the utmost punctuality, in rain or 
shine, calm or blow, and alone, unless it blew heavily from 
the northwest (a head wind from Sutton's), or his little 
grandson — his mate, as he called the boy — wanted to ac- 
company him on a fine, still morning. Soon he extended 
his trips to the western side of North-East Harbor, where 
he found a much larger market for his goods than he had 
found thirty-five years before, when he first delivered milk 
at Squire Kimball's tavern. This business involved what 
was new work for John Gilley, namely, the raising of fresh 
vegetables in much larger variety and quantity than he 
was accustomed to. He entered on this new work with 
interest and intelligence, but was of course sometimes de- 
feated in his plans by wet weather in spring, a drought in 
summer, or by the worms and insects which unexpectedly 
attacked his crops. On the whole he was decidedly suc- 
cessful in this enterprise undertaken at seventy-one. 
Those who bought of him liked to deal with him, and he 
found in the business fresh interest and pleasure. Not 
many men take up a new out-of-door business at seventy, 
and carry it on successfully by their own brains and mus- 
cles. It was one of the sources of his satisfaction that he 



384 American Literature 

thus supplied the two daughters who still lived at his house 
with a profitable outlet for their energies. One of these — 
the school-teacher — was an excellent laundress, and the 
other was devoted to the work of the house and the farm, 
and was helpful in her father's new business. John Gilley 
transported the washes from North-East Harbor and back 
again in his rowboat, and under the new conditions of the 
place washing and ironing proved to be more profitable 
than school-keeping. 

In the fall of 1896 the family which had occupied that 
summer one of the houses John Gilley was in the habit of 
supplying with milk, eggs, and vegetables, and which had 
a young child dependent on the milk, Ungered after the 
other summer households had departed. He consented to 
continue his daily trips a few days into October that the 
child's milk might not be changed, although it was per- 
fectly clear that his labor could not be adequately recom- 
pensed. On the last morning but one that he was to come 
across from the island to the harbor a strong northeast 
wind was blowing, and some sea was running through the 
deep passage between Sutton's Island and Bear Island, 
which he had to cross on his way to and fro. He took 
with him in his boat the young man who had been work- 
ing for him on the farm the few weeks past. They 
dehvered the milk, crossed to the western side of North- 
East Harbor, did some errands there, and started cheer- 
fully for home, as John Gilley had done from that shore 
hundreds of times before. The boy rowed from a seat near 
the bow, and the old man sat on the thwart near the stern, 
facing the bow, and pushing his oars from him. They had 
no thought of danger; but to ease the rowing they kept to 
windward under Bear Island, and then pushed across the 
deep channel, south by west, for the western point of 
Sutton's Island. They were more than half-way across 
when, through some inattention or lack of skill on the 
part of the young man in the bow, a sea higher or swifter 
than the rest threw a good deal of water into the boat. 
John Gilley immediately began to bail, and told the rower 
to keep her head to the waves. The overweighted boat 



Later and Present- Day Writers 385 

was less manageable than before, and in a moment another 
roller turned her completely over. Both men clung to the 
boat and chmbed on to her bottom. She drifted away 
before the wind and sea toward South-West Harbor. The 
oversetting of the boat had been seen from both Bear 
Island and Sutton's Island; but it was nearly three quar- 
ters of an hour before the rescuers could reach the floating 
boat, and then the young man, though unconscious, was 
still clinging to the boat's keel, but the old man, chilled 
by the cold water and stunned by the waves which beat 
about his head, had lost his hold and sunk into the sea. 
In half an hour John GilLey had passed from a hearty and 
successful old age in this world, full of its legitimate in- 
terests and satisfactions, into the voiceless mystery of 
death. No trace of his body was ever found. It dis- 
appeared into the waters on which he had played and 
worked as boy and man all his long and fortunate Ufe. 
He left his family well provided for, and full of gratitude 
and praise for his honorable career and his sterling char- 
acter. 

This is the Hfe of one of the forgotten millions. It con- 
tains no material for distinction, fame, or long remem- 
brance; but it does contain the material and present the 
scene for a normal human development through mingled 
joy and sorrow, labor and rest, adversity and success, and 
through the tender loves of childhood, maturity, and age. 
We cannot but believe that it is just for countless quiet, 
simple Kves Hke this that God made and upholds this 
earth. 

lo. Thomas R. Lounsbury (1838- H (5 is a professor of 
English at Yale. He has written much about Shakespeare and 
Browning and made many contributions to the study of the 
English language. 

Browning's Unpopularity 

(From The Early Literary Career of Robert Browning) 

We know now that Browning felt keenly the injustice 
with which he was treated. We learn much about his 



386 American Literature 

attitude from his wife's correspondence. Her resentment 
of the neglect he experienced was greater than his own; 
at least it has reached us more definitely. ''To you,'" she 
wrote to Browning's sister in i860, ''I may say, that the 
bhndness, deafness, and stupidity of the Enghsh pubhc 
to Robert are amazing. Robert is. All England can't 
prevent his existence, I suppose. But nobody there, 
except a small knot of pre-RaffaeUte men, pretends to do 
him justice. ]Mr. Forster has done the best in the press. 
As a sort of lion, Robert has his range in society, and, for 
the rest, you should see Chapman's returns; while in 
America, he's a power, a writer, a poet. He is read — 
he Hves in the hearts of the people." The contrast be- 
tween the estimate in which she and her husband were held 
in their own country and the feehng entertained about 
them in this, she expressed wath a good deal of bitterness. 
"For the rest," she continued, "the Enghsh hunt hons 
too, but their favorite Hons are chosen among 'lords' 
chiefly, or 'railroad kings.' 'It's worth eating much dirt,'' 
said an Enghshman of high family and character here, ' to 

get to Lady 's soiree.' Americans \\\\\ eat dirt to 

get to us. There's the difference." 

A year later IMrs. Browning records an instance of the 
ignorance prevaiHng about her husband and his work which, 
did it come from any other source than herself, it would be 
hard to credit. It occurs in a letter sent to her sister-in- 
law from Rome in 186 1. In it she speaks again of the atti- 
tude of his countrymen toward her husband and his sense 
of its injustice. "His treatment in England," she wrote, 
"affects him naturalh- — and for my part I set it down as 
an infamy of that pubhc— no other word. He says he 
has told you some things you had not heard, and which, 
I acknowledge, I always try to prevent him from repeating 
to any one. I wonder if he has told you besides (no, I 
fancy not) that an Enghsh lady of rank, an acquaintance 
of ours (observe that I) asked, the other day, the American 
Minister whether Robert was not an American. The Min- 
ister answered, 'Is it possible that you ask me this? Why, 
there is not so poor a' \'illage in the United States where 



J Later and Present- Day Writers 387 

they would not tell you that Robert Browning was an 
Englishman, and that they were very sorry that he was 
not an American.' Very pretty of the American Min- 
ister — was it not? — and literally true besides." 

Undoubtedly the popularity of Browning in this country 
was exaggerated by his wdfe to give point to the contrast. 
But there is no question that the reading pubHc in England 
remained for a long time scandalously indifferent to his 
achievement and showed but slight appreciation of its 
greatness. The fact of the neglect must be conceded. 
Is there any explanation of it, any palhation for it? Is 
there in particular any ground for the charge of unneces- 
sary and wlful obscurity of meaning and harshness of 
versification, which whether really existing or merely 
asserted to exist militated constantly against the accep- 
tance of the poet as poet? BrowTiing himself was from 
the beginning well aware of his reputation for lack of clear- 
ness. In a letter sent in April, 1845, to his future wife he 
remarked that something he had written to her previously 
was '"pretty sure to meet the usual fortime of my writings 
— you will ask what it means." At times this complaint 
of obscurity afforded him matter for jest. He was fond 
of repeating a remark of Wordsworth about his marriage 
to Miss Barrett. "I hope," said the veteran poet, "that 
these young people wall make themselves intelhgible to 
each other, for neither of them will ever be intelhgible to 
anybody else." The woman soon to be his wife admitted 
her o^\^l liabiUty to this charge of obscurity. Occasionally 
too she herself found her future husband uninteUigible. 
"People say of you and me," she wrote to him in the be- 
ginning of their acquaintance, "that we love the darkness 
and use a Sphinxine idiom in our talk." She went on to 
make a personal application of this view to something 
which he had been writing to her. "Really," she said, 
"you do talk a httle hke a Sphinx." 

II. George Herbert Palmer (1842- ), for many years a 



professor at Harvard, is a frequent con; 
periodicals. His prose translation of/ 
become an English classic. 



ributor to educational 
Homer's Odyssey has 



388 American Literature 

The Vocabulary 

(From Self -Cultivation in English) 

Obviously, good English is exact English, Our words 
should fit our thoughts hke a glove, and be neither too wide 
nor too tight. If too wide, they will include much vacuity 
beside the intended matter. If too tight, they will check 
the strong grasp. Of the two dangers, looseness is by far 
the greater. There are people who say what they mean 
with such a naked precision that nobody not famiUar 
with the subject can quickly catch the sense. George 
Herbert and Emerson strain the attention of many. But 
niggardly and angular speakers are rare. Too frequently 
words signify nothing in particular. They are merely 
thrown out in a certain direction, to report a vague and 
undetermined meaning or even a general emotion. The 
first business of every one who would train himself in 
language is to articulate his thought, to know definitely 
what he wishes to say, and then to pick those words which 
compel the hearer to think of this and only this. For 
such a purpose two words are often better than three. The 
fewer the words, the more pungent the impression. Brev- 
ity is the soul not simply of a jest, but of wit in its finest 
sense where it is identical with wisdom. He who can put 
a great deal into a little is the master. Since firm texture 
is what is wanted, not embroidery or superposed ornament, 
beauty has been well defined as the purgation of super- 
fluities. And certainly many a paragraph might have its 
beauty brightened by letting quiet words take the place 
of its loud words, omitting its "verys," and striking out 
its purple patches of "fine writing." Here is Ben Jonson's 
description of Bacon's language: "There happened in my 
time one noble speaker who was full of gravity in his speech. 
No man ever spoke more neatly, more pressly, more 
weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness, in what 
he uttered. No member of his speech but consisted of 
his own graces. His hearers could not cough or look 
aside without loss. He commanded when he spoke, and 
had his judges angry or pleased at his discretion." Such 



Later and Present- Day Writers 389 

are the men who command, men who speak "neatly and 
pressly." But to gain such precision is toilsome business. 
While we are in training for it, no word must unpermittedly 
pass the portal of the teeth. Something like what we mean 
must never be counted equivalent to what we mean. 
And if we are not sure of our meaning or of our word, we 
must pause until we are sure. Accuracy does not come 
of itself. For persons who can use several languages, 
capital practice in acquiring it can be had by translating 
from one language to another and seeing that the entire 
sense is carried over. Those who have only their native 
speech will find it profitable often to attempt definitions 
of the common words they use. Inaccuracy will not 
stand up against the habit of definition. Dante boasted 
that rhythmic exigency had ever made him say what he 
did not mean. We heedless and unintending speakers, 
under no exigency of rhyme or reason, say what we mean 
but seldom and still more seldom mean what we say. 
To hold our thoughts and words in significant adjustment 
requires unceasing consciousness, a perpetual determina- 
tion not to tell hes; for of course every inaccuracy is a bit 
of untruthfulness. We have something in mind, yet con- 
vey something else to our hearer. And no moral purpose 
will save us from this untruthfulness unless that purpose 
is sufficient to inspire the daily drill which brings the power 
to be true. Again and again we are shut up to evil be- 
cause we have not acquired the abihty of goodness. 



Why, then, do we hesitate to swell our words to meet 
our needs? It is a nonsense question. There is no reason. 
We are simply lazy; too lazy to make ourselves comfort- 
able. We let our vocabularies be limited, and get along 
rawly without the refinements of human intercourse, 
without refinements in our own thoughts; for thoughts 
are almost as dependent on words as words on thoughts. 
For example, all exasperations we lump together as ''ag- 
gravating," not considering whether they may not rather 
be displeasing, annoying, offensive, disgusting, irritating, 



390 American Literature 

or even maddening; and without observing, too, that in 
our reckless usage we have burned up a word which might 
be convenient when we should need to mark some shading 
of the word "increase." Like the bad cook, we seize the 
frying-pan whenever we need to fry, broil, roast, or stew, 
and then we wonder why all our dishes taste alike while 
in the next house the food is appetizing. It is all unneces- 
sary. Enlarge the vocabulary. Let any one who wants 
to see himself grow, resolve to adopt two new words each 
week. It will not be long before the endless and enchant- 
ing variety of the world will begin to reflect itself in his 
speech, and in his mind as well. I know that when we 
use a word for the first time we are startled, as if a fire- 
cracker went off in our neighborhood. We look about 
hastily to see if any one has noticed. But finding that no 
one has, we may be emboldened. A word used three times 
slips off the tongue with entire naturalness. Then it is 
ours forever, and with it some phase of life which had been 
lacking hitherto. For each word presents its own point of 
view, discloses a special aspect of things, reports some httle 
importance not otherwise conveyed, and so contributes its 
small emancipation to our tied-up minds and tongues. 

But a brief warning may be necessary to make my mean- 
ing clear. In urging the addition of new words to our 
present poverty-stricken stock, I am far from suggesting 
that we should seek out strange, technical, or inflated ex- 
pressions, which do not appear in ordinary conversation. 
The very opposite is my aim. I would put every man 
who is now employing a diction merely local and per- 
sonal in command of the approved resources of the En- 
glish language. Our poverty usually comes through pro- 
vinciality, through accepting without criticism the habits 
of our special set. My family, my immediate friends, 
have a diction of their own. Plenty of other words, 
recognized as sound, are known to be current in books, 
and to be employed by modest and intelligent speakers, 
only we do not use them. Our set has never said "dic- 
tion," or "current," or "scope," or "scanty," or "hitherto," 
or "convey," or "lack." Far from unusual as these words 



Later and Present- Day Writers 391 

are, to adopt them might seem to set me apart from those 
whose intellectual habits I share. From this I shrink. I 
do not like to wear clothes suitable enough for others, but 
not in the style of my own plain circle. Yet if each one of 
that circle does the same, the general shabbiness is in- 
creased. The talk of all is made narrow enough to fit the 
thinnest there. What we should seek is to contribute to 
each of the Httle companies with which our Ufe is bound 
up a gently enlarging influence, such impulses as will not 
startle or create detachment, but which may save from 
humdrum, routine, and dreary usualness. We cannot be 
really kind without being a Httle venturesome. The small 
shocks of our increasing vocabulary will in all probabiHty 
be as helpful to our friends as to ourselves. 

Such, then, are the excellences of speech. If we would 
cultivate ourselves in the use of EngHsh, we must make our 
daily talk accurate, daring, and full. I have insisted on 
these points the more because in my judgment all hterary 
power, especially that of busy men, is rooted in sound 
speech. . . . \'J 

12. Arlo Bates (1850- ), professor of EngHsh at the 
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is well known for his 
essays in criticism. He has also written novels and poems. 

New Books 

(From Talks on the Study of Literature, Chapter XIII) 

The quaHty of "timeHness" is one of the things which 
makes it especially difficult to distinguish among new 
books. There is in this day an ever-increasing tendency to 
treat all topics of popular discussion in ways which profess 
to be imaginative, and especially in the narrative form. 
The novel with a theory and the poem with a purpose 
are so enveloped with the glamour of immediate interest 
that they appear to be of an importance far beyond that 
which belongs to their real merit. Curiosity to know what 
these books have to say upon the questions which most 
deeply interest or most vitally affect humanity is as natural 
as it is difficult to resist. The desire to see what a book 



392 American Literature 

which is talked about is like is doubly hard to overcome 
when it is so easily excused under the pretense of gaining 
Hght on important questions. Time seems to be proving, 
however, that the amount of noise made over these theory- 
mongering romances is pretty nearly in adverse ratio to 
their worth. We are told in Scripture that wisdom calleth 
in the streets, and no man regardeth, but the opposite 
seems to be true of the clamors of error. The very vehe- 
mence of these books is the quahty which secures to them 
attention; and it is impossible wholly to ignore them and 
yet to keep in touch with the time. 



The practical question which instantly arises is how one 
is to know good books from bad until one has read then^^ 
How to distinguish between what is worthy of atted(Pm 
and what is ephemeral trash has perplexed many a sincere 
and earnest student. This is a duty which should devolve 
largely upon trained critics, but unhappily criticism is 
not to-day in a condition which makes it reliable or prac- 
tically of very great assistance where recent pubUcations 
are concerned. The reader is left to his own judgment 
in choosing among writings hot from the press. Fortu- 
nately the task of discriminating is not impossible. It is 
even far less difficult than it first appears. The reader is 
seldom without a pretty clear idea of the character of 
notorious books before he touches them. Where the multi- 
tude of publications is so great, the very means of adver- 
tising which are necessary to bring them into notice show 
what they are. Even should a man make it a rule to read 
nothing until he has a definite estimate of its merit, he will 
find in the end that he has lost little. For any purposes 
of the cultivation of the mind or the imagination the book 
which is good to read to-day is good to read to-morrow, so 
that there is not the haste about reading a real book that 
there is in getting through the morning paper, which be- 
comes obsolete by noon. When one considers, too, how 
small a portion of the volumes published it is possible to 
have time for, and how important it is to make the most 



Later and Present- Day Writers 393 

of life by having these of the best, one reaHzes that it is 
worth while to take a good deal of trouble, and if need be 
to sacrifice the superficial enjoyment of keeping in the 
front rank of the mad mob of sensation seekers whose only 
idea of hterary merit is noise and novelty. It is a trivial 
and silly vanity which is unhappy because somebody — or 
because everybody — has read new books first. 

13. David Starr Jordan (1851- ), until recently pres- 
ident of Leland Stanford University, California, is a scientist 
and a writer on a wide range of subjects. In his poems, stories, 
and essays he often shows the touch of the literary artist. 

The Death of McKinley 

■MBj^m The Lessons of the Tragedy in The Voice oj the Scholar) 

The last words of Garfield were these: Strangulatus pro 
Republica (slain for the Repubhc). The feudal tyranny 
of the spoils system which had made repubhcan adminis- 
tration a'farce, has not had, since Garfield's time a defender. 
It has not vanished from our politics, but its place is where 
it belongs — among the petty wrongs of maladministration. 

Again a president is slain for the Republic — and the 
lesson is the homely one of peace and order, patience and 
justice, respect for ourselves through respect for law, for 
pubhc welfare, and for pubhc right. 

For this country is passing through a time of storm and 
stress, a flurry of lawless sensationahsm. The irrespon- 
sible journahsm, the industrial wars, the display of hastily 
gotten wealth, the grasping of monopoly, the walking 
delegate, the vulgar cartoon, the foul-mouthed agitator, 
the sympathetic strike, the unsympathetic lockout, are all 
symptoms of a single disease — the loss of patriotism, the 
decay of the sense of justice. As in other cases, the symp- 
toms feed the disease, as well as indicate it. The deed of 
violence breeds more deeds of violence; anarchy provokes 
hysteria, and hysteria makes anarchy. The unfounded 
scandal sets a hundred tongues to wagging, and the seepage 
from the gutter reaches a thousand homes. . . . 



394 American Literature 

The gospel of discontent has no place within our Republic. 
It is true, as has often been said, that discontent is the 
cause of human progress. It is truer still, as Mr. John P. 
Irish has lately pointed out, that discontent may be good 
or bad, according to its relation to the individual man. 
There is a noble discontent which a man turns against 
himself. It leads the man who fails, to examine his own 
weaknesses, to make the needed repairs in himself, then to 
take up the struggle again. There is a cowardly discontent 
which leads a man to blame all failure on his prosperous 
neighbor or on society at large, as if a social system existed 
apart from the men who make it. This is the sort of dis- 
content to which the agitator appeals, that finds its stimulus 
in sensational journahsm. It is that which feeds the frenzy 
of the assassin who would work revenge on society by de- 
stroying its accepted head. 

The real Americans, trying to hve their lives in their 
own way, saving a httle of their earnings and turning the 
rest into education and enjoyment, have many grievances 
in these days of grasping trusts and lawless unions. But 
of such free Americans our country is made. They are the 
people, not the trusts or the unions, nor their sensational 
go-betweens. This is their government, and the govern- 
ment of the people, by the people, and for the people shall 
not perish from the earth. This is the people's president 
— our president — who was killed, and it is ours to avenge 
him. 

Not by lynch law on a large or small scale may we do 
it; not by anarchy or despotism; not by the destruction 
of all that call themselves anarchists, not by abridging 
freedom of the press nor by checking freedom of speech. 
Those who would wreak lawless vengeance on the an- 
archists are themselves anarchists and makers of an- 
archists. 

We have laws enough already without making more 
for men to break. Let us get a httle closer to the higher 
law. Let us respect our own rights and those of our neigh- 
bor a little better. Let us cease to tolerate sensational 
falsehood about our neighbor, or vulgar abuse of those in 



Later and Present- Day Writers 395 

power. If we have bad rulers, let us change them peace- 
fully. Let us put an end to every form of intimidation, 
wherever practiced. The cause that depends upon hurling 
rocks or epithets, upon clubbing teamsters or deraihng 
trains, cannot be a good cause. . . . 

We trust now that the worst has come, the foulest deed 
has been committed, that our civil wars may stop, not 
through the victory of one side over the other, the trusts 
or the unions now set off against each other, but in the 
victory over both of the American people, of the great 
body of men and women who must pay for all, and who 
are the real sufferers in every phase of the struggle. 

Strangulatus pro Repuhlica — slain for the Republic. 
The lesson is plain. It is for us to take it into our daily 
lives. It is the lesson of peace and good-will, the lesson of 
manhness and godhness. Let us take it to ourselves, and 
our neighbors will take it from us. . . . 

14. Brander Matthews (1852- ) is a professor of En- 
glish at Columbia University, New York City, who has written 
many critical essays. His studies of the drama and the short 
story are his most notable contribution to American literature. 

The Story of ''My Maryland" 

(From The Songs of the Civil War, in Pen and hik) 

A National hymn is one of the things which cannot be 
made to order. No man has ever yet sat him down and 
taken up his pen and said, "I will write a national hymn," 
and composed either words or music which a nation was 
wilHng to take for its own. The making of the song of the 
people is a happy accident, not to be accompKshed by 
taking thought. It must be the result of fiery feehng 
long confined, and suddenly finding vent in burning words 
or moving strains. Sometimes the heat and the pressure 
of emotion have been fierce enough and intense enough to 
call forth at once both words and music, and to weld them 
together indissolubly once and for all. Almost always the 
maker of the song does not suspect the abiding value of 



396 American Literature 

his work; he has wrought unconsciously, moved by a power 
within; he has written for immediate rehef to himself, 
and with no thought of fame or the future; he has builded 
better than he knew. The ^at national lyric is the re- 
sult of the conjunction of the hour and the man. Mon- 
archs cannot command it, and even poets are often power- 
less to achieve it. No one of the great national hymns 
has been written by a great poet. 



More than one enterprising poet, and more than one 
aspiring musician, has volunteered to take the contract to 
supply the deficiency; as yet no one has succeeded. 
'Yankee Doodle' we got during the Revolution, and the 
'Star-spangled Banner' was the gift of the War of 1812; 
from the Civil War we have received at least two war 
songs which, as war songs simply, are stronger and finer 
than either of these — 'John Brown's Body' and 'March- 
ing Tfirough Georgia.' 

Of the lyrical outburst which the war called forth but 
little trace' is now to be detected in Hterature except by 
special students. In most cases neither words nor music 
have had vitahty enough to survive a quarter of a century. 
Chiefly, indeed, two things only survive, one Southern and 
the other Northern; one a war-cry in verse, the other a 
martial tune: one is the lyric 'My Maryland,' and the 
other is the marching song 'John Brown's Body.' The 
origin and development of the latter, the rude chant to 
which a milHon of the soldiers of the Union kept time, is 
uncertain and involved in dispute. The history of the 
former may be declared exactly, and by the courtesy of 
those who did the deed — for the making of a war song is 
of a truth a deed at arms — I am enabled to state fully the 
circumstances under which it was written, set to music, 
and first sung before the soldiers of the South. 

'My Maryland' was written by Mr. James R. Randall, 
a native of Baltimore, and now residing in Augusta, 
Georgia. The poet was a professor of EngKsh hterature 
and the classics in Poydras College at Pointe Coupee, on 



Later and Present- Day Writers 397 

the Fausse Riviere, in Louisiana, about seven miles from 
the Mississippi; and there in April, 1861, he read in the 
New Orleans Delta the news of the attack on the Massa- 
chusetts troops as they pa^H through Baltimore. "This 
account excited me greatlyl^Mr. Randall wrote in answer 
to my request for information; "I had long been absent 
from my native city, and the startling event there inflamed 
my mind. That night I could not sleep, for my nerves 
were all unstrung, and I could not dismiss what I had read 
in the paper from my mind. About midnight I rose, lit 
a candle, and went to my desk. Some powerful spirit 
appeared to possess me, and almost involuntarily I pro- 
ceeded to write the song of 'My Maryland.' I remember 
that the idea appeared to first take shape as music in the 
brain — some wild air that I cannot now recall. The whole 
poem was dashed off rapidly when once begun. It was 
not composed in cold blood, but under what may be called 
a conflagration of the senses, if not an inspiration of the 
intellect. I was stirred to a desire for some way linking 
my name with that of my native State, if not 'with my 
land's language.' But I never expected to do this with 
one single, supreme effort, and no one was more surprised 
than I was at the widespread and instantaneous popularity 
of the lyric I had been so strongly stimulated to write." 
Mr. Randall read the poem the next morning to the college 
boys, and at their suggestion sent it to the Delta, in which 
it was first printed, and from which it was copied into 
nearly every Southern journal. "I did not concern my- 
self much about it, but very soon, from all parts of the 
country, there was borne to me, in my remote place of 
residence, evidence that I had made a great hit, and that, 
whatever might be the fate of the Confederacy, the song 
would survive it." 

Unlike the authors of the 'Star-spangled Banner' and 
the 'Marseillaise,' the author of 'My Maryland' had not 
written it to fit a tune already famihar. It was left for 
a lady of Baltimore to lend the lyric the musical wings it 



398 American Literature 

needed to enable it to reach every camp-fire of the Southern 
armies. To the courtesy of this lady, then Miss Hetty 
Gary, and now the wife of Professor H. Newell Martin, 
of Johns Hopkins Universilj^ am indebted for a pictur- 
esque description of the ma^J^e of the words to the music, 
and of the first singing of the song before the Southern 
troops. 

The house of Mrs. Martin's father was the headquarters 
for the Southern sympathizers of Baltimore. Correspon- 
dence, money, clothing, suppHes of all kinds went thence 
through the Hues to the young men of the Confederate 
army. "The enthusiasm of the girls who worked and 
the 'boys' who watched for their chance to slip through 
the lines to Dixie's land found vent and inspiration in 
such patriotic songs as could be made or adapted to suit 
our needs. The glee club was to hold its meeting in our 
parlors one evening early in June, and my sister, Miss 
Jenny Cary, being the only musical member of the family, 
had charge of the programme on the occasion. With a 
school-girl's eagerness to score a success, she resolved to 
secure some new and ardent expression of feelings that by 
this time were wrought up to the point of explosion. In 
vain she searched through her stock of songs and airs — 
nothing seemed intense enough to suit her. Aroused by 
her tone of despair, I came to the rescue with the sugges- 
tion that she should adapt the words of 'Maryland, my 
Maryland,' which had been constantly on my lips since 
the appearance of the lyric a few days before in the South. 
I produced the paper and began declaiming the verses. 
'Lauriger Horatius,' she exclaimed, and in a flash the 
immortal song found voice in the stirring air so perfectly 
adapted to it. That night, when her contralto voice rang 
out the stanzas, the refrain rolled forth from every throat 
present without pause or preparation; and the enthusiasm 
communicated itself with such effect to a crowd assembled 
beneath our open windows as to endanger seriously the 
Hberties of the party." 

'Lauriger Horatius' has long been a favorite college 
song, and it had been introduced into the Cary household 



Later and Present- Day Writers 399 



by Mr. Burton N. Harrison, then a Yale student. The 
air to which it is sung is used also for a lovely German 
lyric, 'Tannenbaum, O Tam^baum,' which Longfellow 
has translated 'O Hemloc|^«-ee.' The transmigration. 
of tunes is too large and fert^pS subject for me to do more 
here than refer to it. The taking of the air of a jovial 
college song to use as the setting of a fiery war-lyric may 
seem strange afcd curious, but only to those w^ho are not 
famihar -^h the adventures and transformations a tune 
is often made^o undergo. Hopkinson's 'Hail Columbia!' 
for example^Bis written to the tune of the 'President's 
March,' jusR?Mrs. Howe's 'Battle-Hymn of the Repub- 
Hc' was written to 'John Brown's Body.' The 'Wearing 
of the Green^f the Irishman, is sung to the same air as 
the 'Benn)^avens, !' of the West Pointer. The 'Star- 
spangled Banner' has to make shift with the second-hand 
music of 'Anacreon in Heaven,' while our other national 
air, 'Yankee Doodle,' uses over the notes of an old English 
nursery rhyme, 'Lucy Locket,' once a personal lampoon in 
the days of the 'Beggars' Opera,' and now sur\aving in the 
'Baby's Opera' of Mr. Walter Crane. 'My Country, 'tis 
of Thee,' is set to the truly British tune of 'God Save the 
King,' the origin of which is doubtful, as it is claimed by 
the French and the Germans as well as the Enghsh. In the 
hour of battle a war-tune is subject to the right of capture, 
and, like the cannon taken from the enemy, it is turned 
against its maker. 

To return to 'My Maryland': — a few weeks after the 
wedding of the words and the music, Mrs. Martin, with 
her husband and sister, went through the Hnes, convoying 
several trunks full of miUtary clothing, and wearing con- 
cealed about her person a flag bearing the arms of Maryland, 
a gift from the ladies of Baltimore to the Maryland troops 
in the Confederate army. In consequence of reports 
which were borne back to the Union authorities the ladies 
were forbidden to return. "We were Hving," so Mrs. 
Martin writes me, "in Virginia in exile, when, shortly 
after the battle of Manassas, General Beauregard, hear- 
ing of our labors and sufferings in behalf of the Mary- 



400 American Literature 



landers who had already done such gallant service in his 
command, invited us to visit them at his headquarters 
near Fairfax Court House^ending a pass and an escort 
for us, and the friends by ^v^hi we should be accompanied. 
Our party encamped the n^Bnight in tents prepared for 
us at Manassas, with my kinsman, Captain Sterrell, who 
was in charge of the fortifications there. We were sere- 
naded by the famous Washington Artillery •f New Orleans, 
aided by all the fine voices within reach. Cap^m Sterrell 
expressed our thanks, and asked if there were any service 
we might render in return. 'Let us hear a^Mnan's voice' 
was the cry which arose in response. And,^miding in the 
tent-door, under cover of the darkness, mv sister sang 
' My Maryland ! ' This, I beheve, was the tVv of the song 
in the army. The refrain was speedily c^ipit up and 
tossed back to us from hundreds of rebel throats. As the 
last notes died away there surged forth from the gathering 
throng a wild shout — ' We will break her chains ! She 
shall be free ! She shall be free ! Three cheers and a tiger 
for Maryland ! ' And they were given with a will. There 
was not a dry eye in the tent, and, we were told the next 
day, not a cap with a rim on it in camp. Nothing could 
have kept Mr. Randall's verses from Hving and growing 
into a power. To us fell the happy chance of first giving 
them voice. In a few weeks ' My Maryland ! ' had found 
its way to the hearts of our whole people, and become a 
great national song." « • r _jt*i* 

15. Henry van Dyke (1852-^^ ) was for many years pro- 
fessor of English literature at vPrinceton. He was recently ap- 
pointed United States Ministe? to Holland. He writes charm- 
ing poems, essays, and short stories and is, perhaps, as frequently 
quoted as any present-day writer because of his genius for the 
happy phrase. 

Salt 

(From Salt. Baccalaureate Sermon, Harvard University, June, 
1898. "Ye are the salt of the earth." — Matthew 5 : 13) 

This figure of speech is plain and pungent. Salt is 
savory, purifying, preservative. It is one of those super- 



Later and Present- Day Writers 401 

fluities which the great French wit defined as "things 
that are very necessary." From the very beginning of 
human history men have set a high value upon it and sought 
for it in caves and by the sekshore. The nation that had 
a good supply of it was counted rich. A bag of salt, 
among the barbarous tribes, was worth more than a man. 
The Jews prized it especially because they lived in a warm 
climate where food was difficult to keep, and because their 
rehgion laiid particular emphasis on cleanhness, and be- 
cause salt w^dargely used in their sacrifices. 



Now, froi^pne point of view, it was an immense com- 
pHment for?ffne disciples to be spoken to in this way. 
Their Master showed great confidence in them. He set 
a high value upon them. The historian Livy could find 
nothing better to express his admiration for the people 
of ancient Greece than this very phrase. He called them 
sal gentium, "the salt of the nations." 

But it was not from this point of view that Christ was 
speaking. He was not paying compliments. He was 
giving a clear and powerful call to duty. His thought 
was not that His disciples should congratulate themselves 
on being "better than other men. He wished them to ask 
themselves whether they actually had in them the purpose 
and the power to make other men better. Did they in- 
tend to exercise a purifying, seasoning, saving influence 
in the world? Were they going to make their presence 
felt on earth and felt for good? If not, they would be 
failures and frauds. The savor would be out of them. 
They would be hke lumps of rock salt which has lain too 
long in a damp storehouse; good for nothing but to be 
thrown away and trodden under foot; worth less than 
common rock or common clay, because it would not even 
make good roads. 

Men of privilege without power are waste material. 
Men of enhghtenment without influence are the poorest 
kind of rubbish. Men of intellectual and moral and re- 
ligious culture, who are not active forces for good in society, 



402 American Literature 

are not worth what it costs to produce and keep them. If 
they pass for Christians they are guilty of obtaining re- 
spect under false pretenses. They were meant to be the 
salt of the earth. And the first duty of salt is to be salty. 

This is the subject on which I want to speak to you 
to-day. The saltiness of salt is the symbol of a noble, 
powerful, truly rehgious Hfe. 

You college students are men of privilege. It costs ten 
times as much, in labor and care and money, to bring you 
out where you are to-day as it costs the average man, and 
a hundred times as much as it costs to raise a boy without 
any education. This fact brings you face to face with a 
question: Are you going to be worth your salt? 

You have had mental training and plenty of instruction 
in various branches of learning. You ought to be full of 
intelligence. You have had moral discipline, and the in- 
fluences of good example have been steadily brought to 
bear upon you. You ought to be full of principle. You 
have had rehgious advantages and abundant inducements 
to choose the better part. You ought to be full of faith. 
What are you going to do with your intelhgence, your 
principle, your faith? It is your duty to make active use 
of them for the seasoning, the cleansing, the saving of the 
world. Do not be sponges. Be the salt of the earth. 

I. Think, first, of the influence for good which men of 
intelligence may exercise in the world if they will only 
put their culture to the right use. Half the troubles of 
mankind come from ignorance — ignorance which is sys- 
tematically organized with societies for its support and 
newspapers for its dissemination — ignorance which con- 
sists less in not knowing things than in willfully ignoring 
the things that are already known. There are certain 
physical diseases which would go out of existence in ten 
years if people would only remember what has been learned. 
There are certain political and social plagues which are 
propagated only in the atmosphere of shallow self-con- 
fidence and vulgar thoughtlessness. There is a yellow 
fever of hterature especially adapted and prepared for the 
spread of shameless curiosity, incorrect information, and 



Later and Present-Day Writers 403 

complacent idiocy among all classes of the population. 
Persons who fall under the influence of this pest become so 
triumphantly ignorant that they cannot distinguish be- 
tween news and knowledge. They develop a morbid thirst 
for printed matter, and the more they read the less they 
learn. They are fit soil for the bacteria of folly and fa- 
naticism. 

Now the men of thought, of cultivation, of reason in 
the community ought to be an antidote to these dangerous 
influences. Having been instructed in the lessons of his- 
tory and science and philosophy they are bound to con- 
tribute their knowledge to the service of society. As a 
rule they are wilUng enough to do this for pay, in the pro- 
fessions of law and medicine and teaching and divinity. 
What I plead for is the wider, nobler, unpaid service which 
an educated man renders to society simply by being thought- 
ful and by helping other men to think. 



II. Think, in the second place, of the duty which men 
of moral principle owe to society in regard to the evils which 
corrupt and degrade it. Of the existence of these evils 
we need to be reminded again and again, just because we 
are comparatively clean and decent and upright people. 
Men who live an orderly life are in great danger of doing 
nothing else. We wrap our virtue up in little bags of re- 
spectabihty and keep it in the storehouse of a safe reputa- 
tion. But if it is genuine virtue it is worthy of a better 
use than that. It is fit, and it is designed and demanded, 
to be used as salt, for the purifying of human Hfe. 



What the world needs to-day is not a new system of 
ethics. It is simply a larger number of people who will 
make a steady effort to live up to the system that they 
have already. There is plenty of room for heroism in the 
plainest kind of duty. The greatest of all wars has been 
going on for centuries. It is the ceaseless, glorious con- 
flict against the evil that is in the world. Every warrior 



404 American Literature 

who will enter that age-long battle may find a place in the 
army, and win his spurs, and achieve honor, and obtain 
favor with the great Captain of the Host, if he will but do 
his best to make his hfe purer and finer for every one that 
lives. 

It is one of the burning questions of to-day whether 
university Hfe and training really fit men for taking their 
share in this supreme conflict. There is no abstract an- 
swer; but every college class that graduates is a part of the 
concrete answer. Therein hes your responsibihty, Gentle- 
men. It Hes with you to illustrate the meanness of an 
education which produces learned shirks and refined 
skulkers; or to illuminate the perfection of unselfish cul- 
ture with the light of devotion to humanity. It lies with 
you to confess that you have not been strong enough to 
assimilate your privileges; or to prove that you are able 
to use all that you have learned for the end for which it was 
intended. 

III. It remains only to speak briefly, in the third place, 
of the part which rehgion ought to play in the purifying, 
preserving, and sweetening of society. Hitherto I have 
spoken to you simply as men of intelligence and men of 
principle. But the loftiest reach of reason and the strong- 
est inspiration of morality is religious faith. 

I believe that we are even now in the beginning of a 
renaissance of religion. I believe that there is a rising 
tide of desire to find the true meaning of Christ's teaching, 
to feel the true power of Christ's hfe, to interpret the true 
significance of Christ's sacrifice for the redemption of 
mankind. I believe that never before were there so many 
young men of culture, of intelhgence, of character, passion- 
ately in earnest to find the way of making their religion 
speak, not in word only, but in power. I call you to-day, 
my brethren, to take your part, not with the idle, the 
frivolous, the faithless, the selfish, the gilded youth, but 
with the earnest, the manly, the devout, the devoted, the 



Later and Present- Day Writers 405 

golden youth. I summon you to do your share in the 
renaissance of rehgion for your own sake, for your fellow- 
men's sake, for your country's sake. 

1 6. Barrett Wendell (1855- ) has been for many years 
professor of English at Harvard. He has written novels and 
poems and has made noteworthy contributions to the field of 
criticism. His Literary History of America is his best-known 
work. 

The American Short Story 

(From A Literary History of America, Book VI, Chapter V) 

Though newspapers are incalculably the most popular 
vehicles of modern American expression, there are other 
such vehicles generally familiar to our educated classes. 
The principal of these are the illustrated monthly magazines 
published in New York. These, which circulate by hun- 
dreds of thousands, and go from one end of the country 
to the other, provide the ordinary American citizen of 
to-day with his nearest approach to literature. A glance 
through any volume of any of them will show that the 
literary form which most luxuriantly flourishes in their 
pages is the short story. This development of short stories 
is partly a question of business. Short stories have usually 
been more profitable to writers and more convenient to 
editors than long novels; and at this moment poetry seems 
not to appeal to any considerable public taste. Partly, 
however, this prevalence of short stories seems nationally 
characteristic of American as distinguished from English 
men of letters. Of late, no doubt, England has produced 
one or two writers who do this kind of work extraordinarily 
well; there is no living American, for example, whose 
stories equal those of Mr. KipKng; but Mr. Kipling, a 
remarkable master of this difficult literary form, is a com- 
paratively new phenomenon in EngHsh literature. From 
the days of Washington Irving, on the other hand, Ameri- 
cans have shown themselves able to write short stories 
rather better than anything else. The older short stories 
of America — Irving's and Poe's and even Hawthorne's — 



406 American Literature 

were generally romantic in both impulse and manner. 
Accordingly, however local their sentiment may have been, 
and however local in certain cases their descriptive pas- 
sages, they were not precisely documents from which local 
conditions might be inferred. The short stories of modern 
Americans differ from these by being generally reaHstic in 
impulse and local in detail. We have stories of decaying 
New England, stories of the Middle West, stories of the 
Ohio region and Chicago stories, stories of the Southwest, 
stories of the Rocky Mountains and of CaUfornia, of 
Virginia and of Georgia. In plot these generally seem 
conventionally insignificant. Their characters, too, have 
hardly reached such development as to become recognized 
national types. These characters, however, are often t}^ical 
of the regions which have suggested them; and the de- 
scription of these regions is frequently rendered in elab- 
orate detail with workmanlike effectiveness. On the 
whole, like all the hterature of the moment, in England and 
in America alike, these short stories lack distinction. The 
people who write them, one is apt to feel, are not Olympian 
in temper, but Bohemian. Our American Bohemia, how- 
ever, is not quite Hke that of the old world; at least it is 
free from the kind of recklessness which one so often asso- 
ciates with such regions; and the writing of our Bohemians 
preserves something of that artistic conscience which 
always makes the form of careful American work finer than 
that of prevalent work in the old country. In the short 
stories of American magazines, then, so familiar through- 
out the United States, we have a second type of popular 
literature not at present developed into masterly form, 
but ready to afford both a vehicle and a public to any writer 
of masterly power who may arise. 

17. Woodrow Wilson (1856- ), an eminent scholar and 
writer on political theory, was elected President of the United 
States in 1912. He is a graduate of Princeton University, 
where he served as president from 1902 until 1910, when he 
resigned to become Governor of New Jersey. His book The 
State made him known in two continents. One of his more 
recent publications is Mere Literature and Other Essays. 



Later and Present-Day Writers 407 



The Declaration of Independence 

(From President Wilson's Independence Day address delivered in 
Philadelphia, July 4, 1914) 

Mr. Chairman and Fellow-Citizens — We are assembled 
to-day to celebrate the one-hundred-and-thirty-eighth an- 
niversary of the birth of the United States. I suppose 
we can more vividly realize the circumstances of that 
birth, standing on this historic spot, than it would be 
possible to reahze it anywhere else. 

The Declaration of Independence was written in Phila- 
delphia. It was adopted in this historic building. I have 
just had the privilege of sitting in the chair of the great 
man who presided over those whose deliberations resulted 
in its adoption. Here, my hand rests on the table upon 
which the declaration was signed. We can almost feel we 
are in the visible and tangible presence of a great historic 
transaction. 

But have you ever read the Declaration of Independence ? 
When you have heard it read, have you attended to its 
sentences? The Declaration of Independence is not a 
Fourth of July oration. The Declaration of Independence 
was a document preliminary to war. It involved a vital 
piece of business, not a piece of rhetoric. And if you will 
get further down in the reading than its preliminary pas- 
sages, where it quotes about the rights of men, you will 
see that it is a very specific body of declarations concern- 
ing the business of the day, not the business of our day, 
for the matter with which it deals is past — the business of 
revolution, the business of 1776. The Declaration of In- 
dependence does not mean anything to us merely in its 
general statements, unless we can append to it a similarly 
specific body of particulars as to what we consider our 
Uberty to consist of. 

Liberty does not consist in mere general declarations as 
to the rights of man. It consists in the translation of those 
declarations into definite action. Therefore, standing here 
where the declaration was adopted, reading its businesslike 



408 American Literature 

sentences, we ought to ask ourselves, what is there in it 
for us? There is nothing in it for us unless we can trans- 
late it into terms of our own condition, and of our own 
Hves. We must reduce it to what the lawyers call a bill 
of particulars. It contains a bill of particulars — the bill 
of particulars of 1776 — and, if we are to revitaUze it, we 
are to fill it with a bill of particulars of 1914. 



Every idea has got to be started by somebody and it is 
a lonely thing to start anything. Yet, you have got to 
start it if there is any man's blood in you, and if you love 
the country that you are pretending to work for. I am 
sometimes very much interested in seeing gentlemen sup- 
posing that popularity is the way to success in America. 
The way to success in America is to show you are not afraid 
of anybody except God and his judgment. If I did not 
beheve that, I would not beUeve in democracy. If I did 
not beheve that, I would not beheve people could govern 
themselves. If I did not beheve that the moral judgment 
would be the last and final judgment in the minds of men 
as well as the tribunal of God, I could not beheve in popular 
government. But I do beheve in these things and there- 
fore I earnestly beheve in the democracy, not only of Amer- 
ica, but in the power of an awakened people to govern and 
control its own affairs. So it is very inspiring to come to 
this that may be called the original fountain of hberty 
and independence in America, and take these drafts of 
patriotic feehngs which seem to renew the very blood in a 
man's veins. 

No man could do the work he has to do in Washington 
if he allows himself to feel lonely. He has to make himself 
feel he is part of the people of the United States, and then 
he can not feel lonely. And my dream is this, that as the 
years go on and the world knows more and more of Amer- 
ica, it also will bring out this fountain of youth and re- 
newal, that it will also turn to America for those moral 
inspirations that lie at the base of human freedom, that 
it will never fear America unless it finds itself engaged in 



Later and Present- Day Writers 409 

some enterprise inconsistent with the right of humanity; 
that America will come to that day when all shall know 
she puts human rights above all other rights and that her 
flag is the flag, not only of America, but the flag of human- 
ity. 

What other great people, I ask, has devoted itself to 
this exalted ideal? To what other nation in the world 
can you look for instant sympathy that thrills the whole 
body politic when men anywhere are fighting for their 
rights ? 

I don't know that there ever will be another Declaration 
of Independence, a statement of grievances of mankind; 
but I beHeve if any such document is ever drawn, it will 
be drawn in the spirit of the American Declaration of In- 
dependence, and that America has Hfted the hght that will 
shine unto all generations and guide the feet of mankind to 
the goal of justice, liberty, and peace. 

1 8. Nicholas Murray Butler (1862- ), one of America's 
foremost educators, is president of Columbia University. As 
a member of the New Jersey State Board of Education he intro- 
duced manual training into the schools of New Jersey. He 
founded the New York College for the Training of Teachers, 
which is now a part of Columbia University. He is editor of 
the Educational Review and has written many articles on 
educational subjects, some of which have been collected and 
published in a volume caWeiX'Tke Meaning oj Education. A 
characteristic extract fplit^ws.: '\ 

'^' Changes OE.3iE_j!iiNETEENTH Centu^ 

(Frpm '^^J3«tnocracy and EducatlorT"^ m T//f Meaning of ^^d^ehtion. 
^An address delivered before the NationarEtkteaticmar Associa- 
tion at Buffalo, New York, July 7, 1896) 

. . . The material advances made since the present cen- 
tury opened are more numerous and more striking than 
the sum total of those that all previous history records. 
We find it difficult even to imagine the world of our grand- 
fathers, and almost impossible to appreciate or understand 
it. Without the factory, without the manifold products 



410 American Literature 

and applications of steam and electricity, without even the 
newspaper and the sulphur match, the details of our daily 
Hfe would be strangely different. In our time wholly 
new mechanical and economic forces are actively at work, 
and have already changed the appearance of the earth's 
surface. What another hundred years may bring forth no 
one dares to predict. 

The scientific progress of the century is no less mar- 
vellous and no less revolutionary in its effects than the 
material advances. . , . The geology of Lyell, the as- 
tronomy of Herschel, the biology of von Baer, of Darwin, 
and of Huxley, the physiology of Miiller, the physics of 
Helmholtz and of Roentgen, are already a part of the com- 
mon knowledge of educated men. To us the world and its 
constitution present an appearance very different from that 
which was famihar to our ancestors. 

But most striking and impressive of all movements of 
the century is the pohtical development toward the form 
of government known as democracy. Steadily and doggedly 
throughout the ten decades the movement toward de- 
mocracy has gone its conquering way. When the cen- 
tury opened democracy was a chimera. It had been 
attempted in Greece and Rome and again in the Middle 
Ages; and the reflecting portion of mankind beUeved it 
to be a failure. Whatever its possibihties in a small and 
homogeneous community, it was felt to be wholly inap- 
pHcable to large states. The contention that government 
could be carried on by what Mill called collective medi- 
ocrity rather than by the intelHgent few, was felt to be 
preposterous. The horrible spectre of the French Revolu- 
tion was fresh in the minds of men. The United States, 
hardly risen from their cradle, were regarded by the states- 
men of Europe with a curiosity, partly amused, partly dis- 
dainful. Germany was governed by an absolute mon- 
arch, the grand-nephew of the great Frederick himself. 
In England a constitutional oligarchy, with Pitt at its head, 
was firmly intrenched in power. The Napoleonic reaction 
was in full swing in France. How different will be the 
spectacle when the twentieth century opens ! In Great 



Later and Present- Day Writers 411 

Britain one far-reaching reform after another has left 
standing only the shell of oligarchy; the spirit and support 
of British civiHzation are democratic. Despite the influ- 
ence of Bismarck and the two Wilhams, great progress is 
being made toward the democratization of Germany. 
France, after a period of unexampled trouble and unrest, 
has founded a successful and apparently stable repubHc. 
The United States have disappointed every foe and falsified 
the predictions of every hostile critic. The governmental 
framework constructed by the fathers for less than four 
milUons of people, scattered along a narrow strip of sea- 
board, has expanded easily to meet the needs of a diverse 
population twenty times as large, gathered into great cities 
and distributed over an empire of seacoast, mountain, plain, 
and forest. It has withstood the shock of the greatest civil 
war of all time, fought by men of high intelhgence and de- 
termined con\dctions. It has permitted the development 
and expansion of a civiHzation in which there is equality 
of opportunity for all, and where the highest civil and miH- 
tary honors have been thrust upon the children of the plain 
people by their grateful fellow-citizens. . . . 

19. Edward Alsworth Ross (1866- ), professor of so- 
ciology at the University of Wisconsin, is one of the most bril- 
liant of the younger university writers. His Hterary style is 
picturesque, original, and compeUing, and he has imdoubtedly 
a "gift of the right word." His writings are stimulating and 
should be enjoyed by the young reader. Besides magazine 
articles, he has written Social Control, Sin and Society, The 
Changing Chinese, and Changing America. 

China to the Ranging Eye 

(From The Changing Chinese, Chapter I) 

China is the European Middle Ages made visible. All 
the cities are walled and the walls and gates have been kept 
in repair with an eye to their effectiveness. The mandarin 
has his headquarters only in a walled fortress-city and to 
its shelter he retires when a sudden tempest of rebellion 
vexes the peace of his district. . . . 



412 American Literature 

No memory of China is more haunting than that of the 
everlasting blue cotton garments. The common people 
wear coarse deep-blue "nankeen." The gala dress is a 
cotton gown of a delicate bird's-egg blue or a silk jacket 
of rich hue. In cold weather the poor wear quilted cotton, 
while the well-to-do keep themselves warm with fur-lined 
garments of silk. A general adoption of Western dress 
would bring on an economic crisis, for the Chinese are not 
ready to rear sheep on a great scale and it will be long be- 
fore they can supply themselves with wool. The Chinese 
jacket is fortunate in opening at the side instead of at the 
front. When the winter winds of Peking gnaw at you with 
Siberian teeth, you realize how stupid is our Western way 
of cutting a notch right down through overcoat, coat, and 
vest, apparently in order that the cold may do its worst 
to the tender throat and chest. On seeing the sensible 
Chinaman bring his coat squarely across his front and 
fasten it on his shoulder, you feel like an exposed totem- 
worshiper. 

Wherever stone is to be had, along or spanning the 
main roads are to be seen the memorial arches known as 
pailows, erected by imperial permission to commemorate 
some deed or Hfe of extraordinary merit. It is significant 
that when they proclaim achievement, it is that of the 
scholar, not that of the warrior. They enclose a central 
gateway flanked by two and sometimes by four smaller 
gateways and conform closely to a few standard types, 
all of real beauty. . . . 

In South-China cities a tall moat-girt building, six or 
seven stories high, flat-topped and with small windows 
high up, towers over the mean houses Kke a mediaeval 
donjon keep. It is the pawnshop, which also serves the 
pubHc as bank and safety deposit vault for the reason that 
it can for some hours bid defiance to any robber attack. 
In the larger centers sumptuous guild-halls are to be 
seen. . . . 

In the absence of good roads and draft animals the ut- 
most use has been made of the countless waterways and 
there are probably as many boats in China as in all the 



Later and Present- Day Writers 413 

rest of the world. Nowhere else are there such clever 
river-people, nowhere else is there so lavish an application 
of man-muscle to water movement. The rivers are alive 
with junks propelled by rowers who occupy the forward 
deck and stand as they ply the oar. Sixteen or eighteen 
rowers man the bigger boats and as, bare to the waist, 
they forge by in rhythmic swing, chanting their song of 
labor, the effect is fine. Save when there is a stiff breeze 
to sail with, the up-river junks are towed along the bank, 
and, as no tow-path has ever been built, the waste of toil 
in scrambling along slippery banks, clambering over rocks, 
or creeping along narrow ledges with the tow-rope is dis- 
tressing to behold. 

In the South, population is forced from the land onto 
the water and myriads pass their Hves in sampans and 
house-boats. In good weather these poor families, living 
as it were in a single small room with a porch at either 
end, seem as happy as people anywhere. There is no 
landlord to threaten exaction, no employer to grind them 
down, no foreman to speed them up. There is infinite 
variety in the stirring fife of river and foreshore that passes 
under their eyes; the babble and chatter never cease and 
no one need ever feel lonely. The tiny home can be kept 
with a Dutch cleanHness for water is always to be had 
with a sweep of the arm. They pay no rent and can 
change neighbors, residence, scenery or occupation when 
they please. No people is more natural, animated, and 
self-expressive, for they have simplified life without im- 
poverishing it and have remained free even under the very 
harrow-tooth of poverty. 

Their children, httle river Arabs, have their wits sharp- 
ened early and not for long is the baby tied to a sealed 
empty jar that by floating will mark his location in case 
he tumbles into the water. The year-old child knows how 
to take care of himself. The tot of three or four can 
handle the oar or the pole and is as sharp as our boys of 
six or seven. . . . 

Although the gates of the Chinese city close at night, 
the city is by no means so cut off from the open country 



414 American Literature 

as with us. The man in the street never quite lets go of 
his kinsfolk in the rural village. When, a little while ago, 
shipbuilding and repairing became dull in Hong Kong, 
there was no hanging of the unemployed about the wharves, 
not because they had found other jobs, but because most 
of them had dispersed to their ancestral seats in the coun- 
try, there to work on the old place till times improved. 
The man's family always give him a chance and there is 
rice in the pot for him and his. Nor is this tie with the 
mother-stem allowed to decay with the lapse of time. The 
successful merchant registers his male children in the 
ancestral temple of his clan, contributes to its upkeep and 
is entitled to his portion of roast-pork on the occasion of 
the yearly clan festival, visits the old home during the 
holidays, sends money back so that his people may buy 
more land, takes his children out so they will get acquainted 
and perhaps lets them pass their boyhood in the ancestral 
village so that, after he is gone, they will love and cherish 
the old tie to the soil. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

For Further Illustration 

Burroughs, John: Birds and Poets. 

Time and Change. 
Mabie, H. W. : Essays on Nature and Culture. 

Books and Culture. 
Repplier, A.: A Plea for Humor. (In Points of View.) 

The Fireside Sphinx. 
Roosevelt, T. : A Nation of Pioneers. (In Library of Oratory, vol. 
14.) 

Life in the Wilderness. (From The Winning of the West, vol. 
I, chapter V.) 
Ross, E. A.: The Changing Chiyiese. 

Changing America. 
Van Dyke, H.: The Unknown Quantity. 

Days Off. 

The Ruling Passion. 
Wilson, W. : Mere Literature and Other Essays. 



Later and Present- Day Writers 415 

///. Poetry 

1. Edmund Clarence Stedman (1833-1908) was born in 
Hartford, Connecticut, and was intimately associated with 
Stoddard, Taylor, and Aldrich in literary work in New York 
before the Civil War. After the war he became a banker and has 
since been known in the literary world as the " banker poet." 
His verses all show the touch of the literary artist. He ren- 
dered a great service to the student of literature through his 
Victorian Anthology, published in 1895, and his American 
Anthology, published in 1900. (For readings see Bibliography, 
page 441.) 

2. Richard Watson Gilder (1844- 1909) is one of the fore- 
most American poets of this generation. He was born in New 
Jersey and early achieved a reputation in the literary world 
of New York City. For a long time he was editor of Scribner's 
Monthly, and later of the Century Magazine. His verses are 
polished and beautiful. 

The Sonnet 

What is a sonnet? 'Tis the pearly shell 

That murmurs of the far-off murmuring sea; 

A precious jewel carved most curiously; 

It is a little picture painted well. 

What is a sonnet ? 'Tis the tear that fell 

From a great poet's hidden ecstasy; 

A two-edged sword, a star, a song, — ah me ! 

Sometimes a heavy-tolling funeral bell. 

This was the flame that shook with Dante's breath, 

The solemn organ whereon Milton played 

And the clear glass where Shakespeare's shadow faUs: 

A sea this is, — beware who ventureth ! 

For like a fiord the narrow floor is laid 

Mid-ocean deep to the sheer mountain walls. 

Compare with the above: Wordsworth's Scorn Not the 
Sonnet and Nuns Fret Not; Symonds's The Sonnet ; Rosset- 
ti's " A Sonnet is a Moment's Monument," from The House 
of Life : a Sonnet Sequence ; Watts's The Sonnet's Voice. 



416 American Literature 

3. Joaquin Miller (1841-1913) was one of the most pic. 
turesque figures in American literature. For many years he 
lived alone in the mountains near Oakland, California. He is 
known as the "poet of the Sierras." 

By the Pacific Ocean 

Here room and kingly silence keep 
Companionship in state austere; 
The dignity of death is here, 
The large, lone vastness of the deep; 
Here toil has pitched his camp to rest; 
The west is banked against the west. 

Above yon gleaming skies of gold 
One lone imperial peak is seen; 
While gathered at his feet in green 
Ten thousand foresters are told: 
And all so still ! so still the air 
That duty drops the web of care. 

Beneath the sunset's golden sheaves 
The awful deep walks with the deep, 
Where silent sea doves shp and sweep, 
And commerce keeps her loom and weaves. 
The dead red men refuse to rest; 
Their ghosts illume my lurid West. 

Dead in the Sierras 

His footprints have failed us, 
Where berries are red. 
And madronos are rankest, — 
The hunter is dead ! 



The grizzly may pass 
By his half-open door; 
May pass and repass 
On his path, as of yore; 



Later and Present- Day Writers 417 

The panther may crouch 
In the leaves on his limb; 
May scream and may scream, — 
It is nothing to him. 

Prone, bearded, and breasted 
Like columns of stone; 
And tall as a pine — 
As a pine overthrown. 

His camp-fires are gone, 
What else can be done 
Than let him sleep on 
Till the light of the sun ? 

Ay, tombless! what of it? 
Marble is dust, 
Cold and repellent; 
And iron is rust, 

4. Will Carleton (1845-1912) was a well-known journalist 
of Brooklyn, New York. He wrote many humorous and 
pathetic poems. (See Bibliography, page 440, for suggested 
readings.) 

5. Eugene Field (1850-1895) was a Chicago journalist. 
His verses of child life are among the most charming in our lan- 
guage. He has been called the Poet Laureate of Children. 

Little Boy Blue 

The little toy dog is covered with dust. 

But sturdy and stanch he stands; 
And the little toy soldier is red with rust, 

And his musket moulds in his hands. 
Time was when the little toy dog was new, 

And the soldier was passing fair; 
And that was the time when our Little Boy Blue 

Kissed them and put them there. 



418 American Literature 

"Now, don't you go till I come," he said, 

"And don't you make any noise !" 
So, toddling off to his trundle-bed, 

He dreamt of his pretty toys; 
And, as he was dreaming, an angel song 

Awakened our Little Boy Blue— 
Oh ! the years are many, the years are long, 

But the little toy friends are true ! 

Ay, faithful to Little Boy Blue they stand. 

Each in the same old place, 
Awaiting the touch of a little hand, 

The smile of a little face; 
And they wonder, as waiting the long years through 

In the dust of that little chair, 
What has become of our Little Boy Blue, 

Since he kissed them and put them there. 

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod 

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night 

Sailed off in a wooden shoe, — 
Sailed on a river of crystal light 

Into a sea of dew. 
"Where are you going, and what do you wish?" 

The old moon asked the three. 
"We have come to fish for the herring-fish 
That live in this beautiful sea; 
Nets of silver and gold have we," 
Said Wynken, 
Blynken, 
And Nod. 

The old moon laughed and sang a song. 
As they rocked in the wooden shoe; 

And the wind that sped them all night long 
Ruffled the waves of dew; 

The little stars were the herring-fish 
That lived in the beautiful sea. 



Later and Present- Day Writers 419 

Now cast your nets wherever you wish, — 
Never afeard are we!" 
So cried the stars to the fishermen three, 

Wynken, 

Blynken, 

And Nod. 



All night long their nets they threw 

To the stars in the twinkling foam, — 
Then down from the skies came the wooden shoe, 

Bringing the fishermen home: 
'Twas all so pretty a sail, it seemed 

As if it could not be; 
And some folk thought 'twas a dream they'd dreamed 
Of saihng that beautiful sea; 
But I shall name you the fishermen three: 
Wynken, 
Blynken, 
And Nod. 

Wynken and Blynken are two Httle eyes, 

And Nod is a little head. 
And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies 

Is a wee one's trundle-bed; 
So shut your eyes while Mother sings 

Of wonderful sights that be, 
And you shall see the beautiful things 
As you rock on the misty sea 
Where the old shoe rocked the fishermen three, — 
Wynken, 
Blynken, 
And Nod. 



6. Edwin Markham (1852- ), now engaged in editorial 
work in New York City, was born in Oregon and spent his 
early life as a teacher in California, where he wrote his poem 
The Man with the Hoe. This is considered one of the great 
songs of labor. 



420 American Literature 

The Man with the Hoe 

(Written after seeing the painting by Millet) 

God made man in His own image, in the image of God made He 
him. — Genesis. 

Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans 

Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground, 

The emptiness of ages in his face. 

And on his back the burden of the world. 

Who made him dead to rapture and despair, 

A thing that grieves not and that never hopes, 

StoHd and stunned, a brother to the ox? 

Who loosened and let down this brutal jaw ? 

Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow ? 

Whose breath blew out the light within this brain ? 

Is this the Thing the Lord God made and gave 

To have dominion over sea and land; 

To trace the stars and search the heavens for power; 

To feel the passion of Eternity ? 

Is this the Dream He dreamed who shaped the suns 

And pillared the blue firmament with hght? 

Down all the stretch of Hell to its last gulf 

There is no shape more terrible than this — 

More tongued with censure of the world's blind greed — 

More filled with signs and portents for the soul — 

More fraught with menace to the universe. 

What gulfs between him and the seraphim ! 
Slave of the wheel of labor, what to lum 
Are Plato and the swing of Pleiades ? 
What the long reaches of the peaks of song. 
The rift of dawn, the reddening of the rose? 
Through this dread shape the suffering ages look; 
Time's tragedy is in that aching stoop; 
Through this dread shape humanity betrayed, 
Plundered, profaned, and disinherited. 
Cries protest to the Judges of the World, 
A protest that is also prophecy. 



Later and Present- Day Writers 421 

O masters, lords, and rulers in all lands. 

Is this the handiwork you give to God, 

This monstrous thing distorted and soul-quenched ? 

How will you ever straighten up this shape; 

Touch it again with immortahty; 

Give back the upward looking and the light; 

Rebuild in it the music and the dream; 

Make right the immemorial infamies. 

Perfidious wrongs, immedicable woes ? 

O masters, lords, and rulers in all lands. 
How will the Future reckon with this Man ? 
How answer his brute question in that hour 
When whirlwinds of rebellion shake the world? 
How will it be with kingdoms and with kings — 
With those who shaped him to the thing he is — 
When this dumb Terror shall reply to God, 
After the silence of the centuries ? 

Read John Vance Cheney's The Man with the Hoe. A 
Reply. 

_7r"-Jaines Whitcomb Riley (1853-/ I'l-*;), a journalist living 
in Indianapolis, is popularly known as "the Hoosier Poet." 
His verses in the dialect of the Indiana farmer are widely read 
and loved. He is pre-eminently the poet of the common people. 

The Old Man and Jim^ 

Old man never had much to say — 

'Ceptin' to Jim, — 
And Jim was the wildest boy he had, 

And the old man jes' wrapped up in him ! 
Never heerd him speak but once 
Er twice in my Hfe, — and first time was 
When the army broke out, and Jim he went. 
The old man backin' him fer three months; 
And all 'at I heerd the old man say 
Was, jes' as we turned to start away, — 

^ From Poems Here at Home, by James Whitcomb Riley, copyright 1903. 
Used by special permission of the publishers, The Bobbs-Merrill Company. 



422 American Literature 

"Well, good-by, Jim: 
Take keer of yourse'f ! " 

'Peared like he was more satisfied 

Jes' lookbi' at Jim 
And likin' him all to hisse'f-like, see? 

'Cause he was jes' wrapped up in him ! 
And over and over I mind the day 
The old man come and stood round in the way 
While we was drilHn', a-watchin' Jim; 
And down at the deepot a-heerin' him say, — 

"Well, good-by, Jim: 

Take keer of yourse'f !" 

Never was nothin' about the farm 

Disting'ished Jim; 
Neighbors all ust to wonder why 

The old man 'peared wrapped up in him: 
But when Cap. Biggler, he writ back 
'At Jim was the bravest boy we had 
In the whole dern rigiment, white er black, 
And his fightin' good as his farmin' bad, — 
'At he had led, with a bullet clean 
Bored through his thigh, and carried the flag 
Through the bloodiest battle you ever seen, — ■ 
The old man wound up a letter to him 
'At, Cap. read to us, 'at said, — "Tell Jim 

Good-by; 

And take keer of hisse'f !" 

Jim come home jes' long enough 

To take the whim 
'At he'd Kke to go back in the calvery — 

And the old man jes' wrapped up in him ! 
Jim 'lowed 'at he'd had sich luck afore, 
Guessed he'd tackle her three years more. 
And the old man give him a colt he'd raised, 
And follered him over to Camp Ben Wade, 
And laid around fer a week er so. 



Later and Present- Day Writers 423 

Watchin' Jim on dress-parade; 

'Tel finally he rid away, 

And last he heerd was the old man say, — 

"Well, good-by, Jim: 

Take keer of yourse'f !" 

Tuk the papers, the old man did, 

A-watchin' fer Jim, 
Fully behevin' he'd make his mark 

Some way — jes' wrapped up in him ! 
And many a time the word 'ud come 
'At stirred him up like the tap of a drum: 
At Petersburg, fer instunce, where 
Jim rid right into their cannons there. 
And tuk 'em, and p'inted 'em t'other way, 
And socked it home to the boys in gray, 
As they skooted fer timber, and on and on — 
Jim a Heu tenant, — and one arm gone, — 
And the old man's words in his mind all day, — 

"Well, good-by, Jim: 

Take keer of yourse'f !" 

Think of a private, now, perhaps, 

We'll say like Jim, 
'At's dumb clean up to the shoulder-straps — 

And the old man jes' wrapped up in him ! 
• Think of him— with the war plum' through, 
And the glorious old Red-White-and-Blue 
A-laughin' the news down over Jim, 
And the old man, bendin' over him — 
The surgeon turnin' aw^ay with tears 
'At hadn't leaked fer years and years, 
As the hand of the dvin' boy clung to 
His Father's, the old voice in his ears, — 

"Well, good-by, Jim: 

Take keer of yourse'f ! " 

8. Samuel Minturn Peck (1854- ) is an Alabama man 
of letters. His poems are very popular. 



424 American Literature 



A Southern Girl 

Her dimpled cheeks are pale; 
She's a Hly of the vale, 

Not a rose. 
In a muslin or a lawn 
She is fairer than the dawn 

To her beaux. 

Her boots are sHm and neat, — 
She is vain about her feet. 

It is said. 
She amputates her r's. 
But her eyes are hke the stars 

Overhead. 

On a balcony at night, 
With a fleecy cloud of white 

Round her hair — 
Her grace, ah, who could paint? 
She would fascinate a saint, 

I declare. 

'Tis a matter of regret. 
She's a bit of a coquette, 

Whom I sing: 
On her cruel path she goes 
With a half a dozen beaux 

To her string. 

But let all that pass by, 
As her maiden moments fly, 

Dew-empearled; 
When she marries, on my life, 
She will make the dearest wife 

In the world. 



Later and Present-Day Writers 425 



My Little Girl 

My little girl is nested 

Within her tiny bed, 
With amber ringlets crested 

Around her dainty head; 
She hes so calm and stilly, 

She breathes so soft and low, 
She calls to mind a Kly 

Half-hidden in the snow. 

A weary Kttle mortal 

Has gone to slumberland; 
The Pixies at the portal 

Have caught her by the hand. 
She dreams her broken dolly 

Will soon be mended there. 
That looks so melancholy 

Upon the rocking-chair, 

,» 

I kiss your wayward tresses. 

My drowsy little queen; 
I know you have caresses 

From floating forms unseen. 
O, Angels, let me keep her 

To kiss away my cares, 
This darling little sleeper, 

Who has my love and prayers. 

9. Edith Thomas (1854- ) is a writer of note, living in 
New York City. Stedman says: "Her place is secure among 
the truest living poets of our English tongue." 

Mother England 

I 

There was a rover from a western shore, 
England ! whose eyes the sudden tears did drown, 
Beholding the white cliff and sunny down 



426 American Literature 

Of thy good realm, beyond the sea's uproar. 
I, for a moment, dreamed that, long before, 
I had beheld them thus, when, with the frown 
Of sovereignty, the victor's palm and crown 
Thou from the tilting:field of nations bore. 
Thy prowess and thy glory dazzled first; 
But when in fields I saw the tender flame 
Of primroses, and full-fleeced lambs at play, 
Meseemed I at thy breast, like these, was nursed;' 
Then mother — Mother England ! home I came, 
Like one who hath been all too long away ! • 

II 

As nestling at thy feet in peace I lay, 
A thought awoke and restless stirred in me: 
"My land and congeners are beyond the sea. 
Theirs is the morning and the evening day, 
Wilt thou give ear while this of them I say: 
' Haughty art thou, and they are bold and free, 
As well befits who have descent from thee. 
And who have trodden brave the forlorn way. 
Children of thine, but grown to strong estate; 
Nor scorn from thee would they be slow to pay, 
Nor check from thee submissly would they bear; 
Yet, Mother England! yet their hearts are great. 
And if for thee should dawn some darkest day 
At cry of thine how proudly would they dare!'" 

Doubt 

There may be canker at the rose's core. 
An arrow through the summer darkness flying — 
A poisoned breath in the green leaves' low sighing, 
And bane from Trebizond our bees may store; 
And thou, whose face makes sunshine at my door — 
How know I but those sweetest lips be lying. 
And in their perjuries thine eyes complying. 
What time they say, "Trust us f orevermore ? " 



Later and Present- Day Writers 427 

But no ! beneath what seems I'll not be prying, 

Not though the rose have canker at its core — 

My love, not though thy sweetest Kps be lying ! 

To- doubt, were to receive some wounding score 

Each hour — each day and morrow to be d>ing; 

To Death I yield, but not to Doubt, who slays before ! 

lo. Henry Cuyler Bunner (1855-1896) was for a long time 
editor of Puck. His poems are full of wit and humor, and his 
short stories are clever reflections of real life. 



The Way to Arcady 

Oh, what's the way to Arcady, 

To Arcady, to Arcady; 
Oh, what's the way to Arcady, 

Where all the leaves are merry ? 

Oh, what's the way to Arcady? 
The spring is rustling in the tree, — 
The tree the wind is blowing through, — 

It sets the blossoms flickering white. 
I knew not skies could burn so blue 

Nor any breezes blow so Hght. 
They blow an old-time way for me. 
Across the world to Arcady. 

Oh, what's the way to Arcady? 
Sir Poet, with the rusty coat, 
Quit mocking of the song-bird's note. 
How have you heart for any tune, 
You with the wayworn russet shoon ? 
Your scrip, a-swinging by your side, 
Gapes with a gaunt mouth hungry-wide. 
I'll brim it well with pieces red, 
If you will tell the way to tread. 

Oh, I am hound for Arcady, 
And if you hut keep pace with me 
You tread the way to Arcady. 



428 American Literature 

And where away lies Arcady, 

And how long yet may the journey be ? 

Ah, that (quoth he) / do not know: 
Across the clover and the snow — 
Across the frost, across the flowers — 
Through summer seconds and winter hours, 
Pve trod the way my whole life long, 

And know not now where it may he; 
My guide is hut the stir to song, 
That tells me I cannot go wrong, 

Or clear or dark the pathway he 

Upon the road to Arcady. 

But how shall I do who cannot sing ? 

I was wont to sing, once on a time, — 
There is never an echo now to ring 

Remembrance back to the trick of rhyme. 

^Tis strange you cannot sing (quoth he), — 
The folk all sing in Arcady. 

But how may he find Arcady 
Who hath nor youth nor melody? 

What, know you not, old man (quoth he), — 
Your hair is white, your face is wise,— 
That Love must kiss that Mortal's eyes 

Who hopes to see fair Arcady? 

No gold can huy you entrance there; 

But beggared Love may go all hare — 

No wisdom won with weariness ; 

But Love goes in with Folly's dress — 

No fame that wit could ever win ; 

But only Love may lead Love in 
To Arcady, to Arcady. 

Ah, woe is me, through all my days 

Wisdom and wealth I both have got, 
And fame and name and great men's praise; 



Later and Present- Day Writers 429 

But Love, ah Love ! I have it not. 
There was a time, when Hfe was new — 

But far away, and half forgot — 
I only know her eyes were blue; 

But Love — I fear I knew it not. 
We did not wed, for lack of gold. 
And she is dead, and I am old. 
All things have come since then to me, 
Save Love, ah Love ! and Arcady. 

Ah, then I fear we part (quote he), — 
My ways for Love and Arcady. 

But you, you fare alone, Hke me; 

The gray is likewise in your hair. 

What Love have you to lead you there, 
To Arcady, to Arcady ? 

Ah, no, not lonely do I fare; 

My true companion's Memory. 
With Love he fills the Spring-time air ; 

With Love he clothes the Winter tree. 
Oh, past this poor horizon's hound 

My song goes straight to one who stands, — 
Her face all gladdening at the sound, — 

To lead me to the Spring-green lands. 
To wander with enlacing hands. 
The songs within my breast that stir 
Are all of her. are all of her, 
My maid is dead long years (quoth he), — 
She waits for me in Arcady. 

Oh, yon's the way to Arcady, 

To Arcady, to Arcady ; 
Oh, yon's the way to Arcady, 

Where all the leaves are merry. 

II. Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1855- ) is a contributor to 
the current magazines and a popular writer of verse. 



iJO American Literature 

Worth While ^ 

*Tis easy enough to be pleasant 

When life flows along like a song; 
But the man worth while is the one who will smile 

When everything goes dead wrong. 
For the test of the heart is trouble, 

And it always comes with the years, 
And the smile that is worth the praise of earth 

Is the smile that comes through tears. 

It is easy enough to be prudent 

When nothing tempts you to stray; 
When without or within no voice of sin 

Is luring your soul away. 
But it's only a negative virtue 

Until it is tried by fire. 
And the life that is worth the honor of earth 

Is the one that resists desire. 

By the cynic, the sad, the fallen, 

Who had no strength for the strife, 
The world's highway is encumbered to-day; 

They make up the item of Hfe. 
But the virtue that conquers passion 

And the sorrow that hides in a smile — 
It is these that are worth the homage of earth, 

For we find them once in a while. 

Recrimination 2 

I 

Said Life to Death: ''Methinks, if I were you, 
I would not carry such an awesome face 
To terrify the helpless human race; 

* Reprinted from Poems of Sentiment, by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, copy- 
righted 1892, 1906, by special permission of the publishers, The W. B. 
Conkey Company, Hammond, Ind. 

^ Reprinted from Poems of Power, by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, copyrighted 
1901, 1902, 1903, by special permission of the publishers, The W. B. Conkey 
Company, Hammond, Ind. 



Later and Present- Day Writers 431 

And if indeed those wondrous tales be true 
Of happiness beyond, and if I knew 
About the boasted blessings of that place, 
I would not hide so miserly all trace 
Of my vast knowledge, Death, if I were you: 
But, like a glorious angel, I would lean 
Above the pathway of each sorrowing soul, 
Hope in my eyes, and comfort in my breath, 
And strong conviction in my radiant mien, 
The while I whispered of that beauteous goal. 
This would I do if I were you, O Death." 

II 

Said Death to Life: "If I were you, my friend, 
I would not lure confiding souls each day 
With fair, false smiles to enter on a way 
So filled with pain and trouble to the end; 
I would not tempt those whom I should defend, 
Nor stand unmoved and see them go astray; 
Nor would I force unwilUng souls to stay 
Who longed for freedom, were I you, my friend: 
But, like a tender mother, I would take 
The weary world upon my sheltering breast. 
And wipe away its tears, and soothe its strife; 
I would fulfil my promises, and make 
My children bless me as they sank to rest 
Where now they curse — if I were you, O Life." 

Ill 

Life made no answer, and Death spoke again: 

*'I would not woo from God's sweet nothingness 

A soul to being, if I could not bless 

And crown it with all joy. If unto men 

My face seems awesome, tell me. Life, why then 

Do they pursue me, mad for m.y caress, 

Believing in my silence lies redress 

For your loud falsehoods?" (so Death spoke again). 

"Oh, it is well for you I am not fair — 

Well that I hide behind a voiceless tomb 



432 American Literature 

The mighty secrets of the other place: 

Else would you stand in impotent despair, 

While unfledged souls straight from the mother's womb 

Rushed to my arms and spat upon your face ! " 

12. George E. Woodberry (1855- ) is a graduate of 
Harvard. For many years he was professor of English litera- 
ture at Columbia University. His verses show true poetic feel- 
ing. 

The Child 

It was only the cHnging touch 

Of a child's hand in the street, 

But it made the whole day sweet; 

Caught, as he ran full-speed, 

In my own stretched out to his need, 

Caught, and saved from the fall, 

As I held, for the moment's poise, 

In my circling arms the whole boy's 

DeHcate sHghtness, warmed mould; 

Mine, for an instant mine. 

The sweetest thing the heart can divine, 

More precious than fame or gold. 

The crown of many joys. 

Lay in my breast, all mine. 

I was nothing to him; 

He neither looked up nor spoke; 

I never saw his eyes; 

He was gone ere my mind awoke 

From the action's quick surprise 

With vision blurred and dim. 

You say I ask too much: 

It was only the clinging touch 

Of a child in a city street; 

It hath made the whole day sweet. 

America to England 

Mother of nations, of them eldest we, 
Well is it found, and happy for the state, 



Later and Present-Day Writers 433 

When that which makes men proud first makest them great, 

And such our fortune is who sprang from thee, 

And brought to this new land from over sea 

The faith that can with every household mate. 

And freedom whereof law is magistrate, 

And thoughts that make men brave, and leave them free. 

O Mother of our faith, our law, our lore. 

What shall we answer thee if thou shouldst ask 

How this fair birthright doth in us increase ? 

There is no home but Christ is at the door; 

Freely our toiling millions choose life's task; 

Justice we love, and next to justice peace. 

13. Harry Thurston Peck (1856-1914) was a Connecticut 
scholar who held for many years the chair of Latin at Columbia 
University. 

The Other One 

Sweet little maid with winsome eyes 

That laugh all day through the tangled hair; 
Gazing with baby looks so wise 
Over the arm of the oaken chair, 
Dearer than you is none to me. 

Dearer than you there can be none; 
Since in your laughing face I see 
Eyes that tell of another one. 

Here where the firelight softly glows, 

Sheltered and safe and snug and warm. 
What to you is the wind that blows, 
Driving the sleet of the winter storm ? 
Round your head the ruddy light 

GKnts on the gold from your tresses spun, 
But deep is the drifting snow to-night 
Over the head of the other one. 

Hold me close as you sagely stand, 

Watching the dying embers shine; 
Then shall I feel another hand 



434 American Literature 

That nestled once in this hand of mine; 
Poor little hand, so cold and chill, 

Shut from the light of stars and sun, 
Clasping the withered roses still 
That hide the face of the sleeping one. 

Laugh, little maid, while laugh you may, 

Sorrow comes to us all, I know; 
Better perhaps for her to stay 
Under the robe of drifting snow. 

Sing while you may your baby songs, 
Sing till your baby days are done; 
But oh, the ache of the heart that longs 
Night and day for the other one ! 

14. Richard Hovey (1864-1900) was a graduate of Dart- 
mouth. His genius was rather slow in maturing, but he showed 
great promise at the time of his death. He wrote Songs from 
Vagabondia in collaboration with Bliss Carman, a Canadian 
engaged in literary work in the United States. 

The Call of the Bugles 
Bugles ! 

And the Great Nation thrills and leaps to arms ! 
Prompt, unconstrained, immediate, 
Without misgiving and without debate, 
Too calm, too strong for fury or alarms. 
The people blossoms armies and puts forth 
The splendid summer of its noiseless might; 
For the old sap of light 
Mounts up in South and North, 
The thrill 

That tingled in our veins at Bunker Hill 
And brought to bloom July of 'Seventy-Six ! 
Pine and palmetto mix 
With the sequoia of the giant West 
Their ready banners, and the hosts of war. 
Near and far. 
Sudden as dawn, 



Later and Present- Day Writers 435 

Innumerable as forests, hear the call 

Of the bugles, 

The battle-birds ! 

For not alone the brave, the fortunate, 

Who first of all 

Have put their knapsacks on — 

They are the valiant vanguard of the rest ! — 

Not they alone, but all our milHons wait, 

Hand on sword. 

For the word 

That bids them bid the nations know us sons of Fate. 

Bugles ! 

And in my heart a cry, 

— Like a dim echo far and mournfully 

Blown back to answer them from yesterday ! 

A soldier's burial ! 

November hillsides and the falHng leaves 

Where the Potomac broadens to the tide — 

The crisp autumnal silence and the gray 

(As of a solemn ritual 

Whose congregation glories as it grieves, 

Widowed but still a bride) — 

The long hills sloping to the wave, 

And the long bugler standing by the grave ! 

Taps! 

The lonely call over the lonely woodlands — 

Rising like the soaring of wings. 

Like the flight of an eagle — 

Taps! 

They sound forever in my heart. 

From farther still, 

The echoes — still the echoes ! 

The bugles of the dead 

Blowing from spectral ranks an answering cry ! 

The ghostly roll of immaterial drums, 

Beating reveille in the camps of dream. 

As from far meadows comes, 



436 American Literature 

Over the pathless hill. 

The irremeable stream. 

I hear the tread 

Of the great armies of the Past go by; 

I hear. 

Across the wide sea wash of years between. 

Concord and Valley Forge shout back from the unseen, 

And Vicksburg give a cheer. 

Our cheer goes back to them, the valiant dead ! 

Laurels and roses on their graves to-day, 

Lihes and laurels over them we lay, 

And \-iolets o'er each unforgotten head. 

Their honor still with the returning May 

Puts on its springtime in our memories, 

Nor till the last .\merican with them lies 

Shall the young year forget to strew their bed. 

Peace to their ashes, sleep and honored rest ! 

But we — awake ! 

Ours to remember them with deeds like theirs I 

From sea to sea the insistent bugle blares, 

The drums will not be still for any sake; 

And as an eagle rears his crest. 

Defiant, from some tall pine of the North, 

And spreads his wings to fly, 

The banners of America go forth 

Against the clarion sky. 

Veteran and volunteer. 

They who were comrades of that shadow host, 

And the young brood whose veins renew the fires 

That burned in their great sires, 

Alike we hear 

The summons sounding clear 

From coast to coast, — 

The cr>- of the bugles, 

The battle-birds ! 

Bugles ! 

The imperious bugles ! 



Later and Present-Day Writers 437 

Still their call 

Soars like an exaltation to the sky. 

They call on men to fall, 

To die, — 

Remembered or forgotten, but a part 

Of the great beating of the Nation's heart ! 

A call to sacrifice 1 

A call to \-ictor}' ! 

Hark, in the Emp\Tean 

The battle-birds ! 

The bugles ! 



I 



15. William Vaughn Moody (1869-19 10), a graduate of Har- 
vard, was for several years professor in the department of En- 
gUsh at the University of Chicago. He wrote many poems and 
several dramas, the most successful of which is TheGreat Divide. 
Many of his h-rics are most beautiful. (See Bibhography, page 
441, for suggested readings.) 



16. Paul Lawrence Dunbar (1872-1906) is the first repre- 
sentative of the African race to attain rank as an American 
poet. Some of his work has the true h-ric ring. At the time 
of his death he held a position in the Library of Congress at 
Washington, D. C. 



A CORX-SONG 

On the wide veranda white. 

In the purple failing Hght, 

Sits the master while the sun is lowly burning; 

And his dreamy thoughts are drowned 

In the softly flowing sound 

Of the com-songs of the field-hands slow returning. 



Oh, we hoe de co'n 
Since de ehly mo'n; 
Now de sinkin' sun 
Says de day is done. 



438 American Literature 

'er the fields with heavy tread, 

Light of heart, and high of head, 

Though the halting steps be labored, slow, and weary; 

Still the spirits brave and strong 

Find a comforter in song, 

And their corn-song rises ever loud and cheery. 

Oh, we hoe de co'n 
Since de ehly mo'n; 
Now de sinkin' sun 
Says de day is done. 

And a tear is in the eye 

Of the master sitting by. 

As he listens to the echoes low-repl3dng, 

To the music's fading calls, 

As it faints away and falls 

Into silence, deep within the cabin dying. 

Oh, we hoe de co'n 
Since de ehly mo'n; 
Now de sinkin' sun 
Says de day is done. 



17. Josephine Preston Peabody Marks (1874- ), for- 
merly an instructor at Wellesley College, has written many 
poems and dramas. Her play The Piper won the Stratford- 
on-Avon prize in 19 10 and has been successfully staged both 
in England and America. (See Bibliography, page 441, for 
suggested readings.) 



18. Percy MacKaye (1875- ), a graduate of Harvard, 
is a talented writer of poetic dramas. Several of these have 
been successfully staged, as The Canterbury Pilgrims, Jeanne 
D'Arc, and The Scarecrow. A Garland to Sylvia is a fanciful 
reverie in dramatic form quite unique in its way. His latest 
poem. School, is one of his finest poems. 



Later and Present- Day Writers 439 

(From Ode on the Centenary of Abraham Lincoln, 1909. Delivered 
before the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences at the 
Academy of Music, Brooklyn, New York, February, 1909.) 



VII 

"To sleep, perchance to dream !" — No player, rapt 

In conscious art's soliloquy, might know 

To subtihze the poignant sense so apt 

As he, almost in shadow of the end. 

Murmured its latent sadness to a friend; 

And then he said to him: "Ten nights ago 

I watched alone; the hour was very late; 

I fell asleep and dreamed; 

And in my dreaming, all 

The White House lay in deathhke stillness round, 

But soon a sobbing sound. 

Subdued, I heard, as of innumerable 

Mourners. I rose and went from room to room; 

No Hving being there was visible; 

Yet as I passed, unspeakably it seemed 

They sobbed again, subdued. In every room 

Light was, and all things were familiar: 

But who were those once more 

Whose hearts were breaking there ? What heavy gloom 

Wrapt their dumb grieving ? Last, the East-room door 

I opened, and it lay before me: High 

And cold on solemn catafalque it lay. 

Draped in funereal vestments, and near by 

Mute soldiers guarded it. In black array, 

A throng of varied race 

Stood weeping, 

Or gazing on the covered face. 

Then to a soldier: 'Who is dead 

In the White House ?' I asked. He said: 

'The President.' 

And a great moan that through the people went 

Waked me from sleeping." 



440 American Literature 



VIII 

It was a dream ! for that which fell in death, 
Seared by the assassin's hghtning, and there lay 
A spectacle for anguish was a wraith; 
The real immortal Lincoln went his way 
Back to his only home and native heath — 
The common people's common heart. 



XII 

Leave then, that wonted grief 

Which honorably mourns its martyred dead, 

And newly hail instead 

The birth of him, our hardy shepherd chief, 

Who by green paths, of old democracy 

Leads still his tribes to uplands of glad peace. 

As long as — out of blood and passion blind — 

Springs the pure justice of the reasoning mind. 

And justice, bending, scorns not to obey 

Pity, that once in a poor manger lay. 

As long as, thralled by time's imperious will, 

Brother hath bitter need of brother, still 

His presence shall not cease 

To hft the ages toward his human excellence, 

And races yet to be 

Shall in a rude hut do him reverence 

And solemnize a simple man's nativity. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

For Further Illustration 

Bunner, H. C: Candor. (From Airs from Arcady and Elsewhere.) 
October. (From Airs from Arcady and Elsewhere.) 
A Wood. (From Airs from Arcady and Elsewhere.) 
The Nice People. (In Short Sixes.) 
The Love Letters of Smith. (In Short Sixes). 

Carleton, W.: Out of the Old House, Nancy. 



Later and Present- Day Writers 441 

Field, E.: The Little Book of Western Verse. 
Gilder, R. W.: The Life Mask of Abraham Lincoln. 

The Cello. 
MacKaye, P.: A Garland to Sylvia. School. (In The Forum, October 

1913-) 

Jeanne d'Arc. 
Marks, J. P. Peabody: The Singing Leaves. (Selected Poems.) 

A Book of Songs and Spells. (Selected Poems.) 

The Piper. (A drama.) 
Miller, Joaquin: That Gentleman from Boston. (In Complete 
Poetical Works.) 

An Idyl of Oregon. (In Complete Poetical Works.) 
Moody, W. v.: The Great Divide. (A drama.) 

The Faith Healer. (A drama.) 
Riley, J. W.: When the Frost is on the Pumpkin. (In Neighborly 
Poems.) 

An Old Played Out Song. (In Neighborly Poems.) 
Stedman, E. C: Pan in Wall Street. 

Helen Keller. 

The Diamond Wedding. 



CHAPTER VI 

TENDENCIES 

/. The American Magazine 

A glance backward and a view of the present reveal 
two striking features in the literary history of America, 
the modern magazine and the short story. Our literary 
efforts have crystallized about these two; they are dis- 
tinctively American. The modern magazine dominates the 
literary life of the average American to-day. Of more than 
passing interest, then, should be its life-story. Indeed, 
the history of the American magazine is the history of 
American literature. Periodical literature preceded or 
rather produced an American literature, for it was the 
magazine that created the audience for the author. In 
1818 Sydney Smith asked, in the Edinburgh Review, "Who 
reads an American book?", But with the foundation of 
the North American Review in 181 5 the way was opened 
for a real American literature and, within ten years after 
Sydney Smith put his question not a few American books 
were published worthy to be read, even by the esteemed 
editor of the Edinburgh Review. 

Many of the masterpieces of American literature first 
found a reading pubKc through the magazine. Thus 
Bryant's Thanatopsis and To a Water Fowl appeared in the 
North American Review; Halleck's Marco Bozzaris and 
Bryant's Death of the Flowers were published in the New 
York Review; Poe's Raven was first published in the New 

442 



Tendencies 443 

York Mirror; Longfellow's Psalm of Life came out in the 
Knickerbocker Magazine; Holmes's first two instalments of 
The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table were published in the 
New England Magazine, the later ones in the Atlantic 
Monthly; Whitman's first literary success, Death in a School- 
Room, came out in the Democratic Review; Lowell's earlier 
series of Biglow Papers was published in the Boston Courier; 
E. E. Hale's The Man Without a Country in the Atlantic 
Monthly; W. D. Howells's Venetian Life in the Boston Ad- 
vertiser. And these are but a few instances. 

The editorial history of American magazines discloses the 
following facts. Franklin, in 1741, published the General 
Magazine, which ran for six months; Charles Brockden 
Brown established the Literary Magazine, which lived for 
five years; Richard Henry Dana, Edward Everett, James 
Russell Lowell, and Charles Eliot Norton were succes- 
sively editors of the North American Review, whose purpose 
was "the cultivatios-ef literature and the discussion of 
philosophy"; the Knickerbocker was known as Irving's 
magazine from the fact that he was its chief contributor; 
Poe was editor of the Southern Literary Messenger, then 
of the Gentleman's Magazine, which afterward became 
Graham's, the most popular periodical between the years 
1840 and 1850 and to which Longfellow, Lowell, and Whit- 
tier sent their material; Margaret Fuller, Emerson, and 
George Ripley conducted the Dial; Nathaniel Parker Willis, 
''the most picturesque figure in ante-war periodical litera- 
ture," was editor of Peter Parley's Token and the Mirror 
and established (in 1839) the New York Corsair, "a Gazette 
of Literature, Art, Dramatic Criticism, Fashion, and 
Novelty." The Atlantic Monthly numbers among its editors 
many famous writers, from its first editor, Lowell, to Bliss 
Perry, until recently its distinguished editor. And to-day 



444 American Literature 

the dean of American letters, W. D. Howells, occupies the 
Easy Chair of Harper's Monthly. 

Harper's, founded in 1850, is the pro ot}pe of our mod- 
ern illustrated magazine. This journal first undertook 
the serial publication of works of Hving English authors, 
notably Dickens, Thackeray, and George Eliot. And here 
the short story, which had figured conspicuously in the 
previous magazines, became the all-important feature. In 
this class to-day we have Scribners and the Century, and 
growing out of this type the more popular magazines, the 
Cosmopolitan, Munsey's, Everybody's, and many others. 

The Atlantic Monthly came into being as the result of a 
memorable dinner-party given in 1857 by Mr. Moses D. 
Phillips, the publisher, to Emerson, Lowell, Holmes, Long- 
fellow, and Motley. Holmes had the honor of naming the 
magazine. Soon after its foundation it was declared to be 
"unquestionably the best magazine in the English lan- 
guage," and it still stands pre-eminent in its class. 

Our age of speciahzation has called forth journals for 
discussion of thought progress in all fields of human knowl- 
edge. And so we have such sheets as the Engineering Maga- 
zine, the Psychological Review, Current Opinion, the Scientific 
American, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Journal of 
Sociology, the Educational Review; each special field of en- 
deavor expressing itself through its own special organ. 
Thus it is possible to-day to furnish, through the maga- 
zine, an intellectual diet suited to all tastes. The maga- 
zine adapts itself to the rush and hurry of American life; 
it fits in with our scheme of things. The magazine — which 
may be picked up and thrown down at will — has forced to 
the shelf the book, which requires leisure and quiet concen- 
tration, especially the book that has stood the test of ages. 
We still have our libraries fitted out with the five-foot 



Tendencies 445 

shelf, but the books too often remain on the shelf, while 
our study tables are strewn with magazines of all sorts 
and colors. It has truly served a noble purpose in the 
history of American letters. Through its efforts literature 
has been democratized; the reading pubhc has been enor- 
mously increased. The development of literature, exten- 
sively through the impulse given it by the magazine, is 
beyond measure. But has literature lost or is it losing in- 
tensively because of its widened scope? Does our great 
and growing dependence on periodical literature signify 
danger ahead ? Must our literature, in order to arouse in- 
terest, present a constantly changing moving-picture show ? 
Shall we lose our power to appreciate and enjoy sustained 
efforts through overindulgence in the short story and brief 
magazine article? Are we, indeed, already missing some- 
thing of sweetness and light in our literature because of con- 
stant catering to the prevailing magazine taste of the read- 
ing public ? To-day, it is said, " we lack the leisure to grow 
wise"; but surely these questions must give us pause, must 
furnish food for thought as we enter upon the second decade 
of the twentieth century. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Alden, Henry Mills: Magazine Writing and the New Literature. 

Cairns, W. B.: Ow the Development of American Literature from 1815 
to 1835. (An exhaustive treatment of the early periodical liter- 
ature of America.) 

Faxon, F. W.: Check List of American and English Periodicals. 

Gilfillan, G.: Prospective Periodical Literature. (In Hogg, vol. 
XII, p. 97.) 

Holmes, 0. W.: American Magazines. (In The Atlantic, vol. LV, p. 
105.) 

Nichols, I.: American Literature. 

Palfrey, J. G.: Periodical Literature of America. (In North Amer- 
ican Review, vol. XXXIX, p. 277.) 



446 American Literature 

Check List of American Magazines. (In Library Journal, vol. 

XIV, p. 373-) 
Periodical Literature of America. (In Blackwood, vol. LXIII, 

p. io6.) 
Periodical Press of the United States. (In Eraser, vol. LXVIII, 

P- 325-) 
Tenth Report of the United States Census, 1884, vol. VIII. 

(This contains a statistical report of the newspaper and 

periodical press of America.) 

//. The American Short Story 

The American short story is recognized to-day "as a 
separate literary genre,'' to use Professor C. Alphonso 
Smith's happy phrase. In The Philosophy of the Short 
Story Professor Brander Matthews asserts that as early as 
1884 he had discovered that there was an essential differ- 
ence, aside from the matter of length, between the short 
story and the novel. But the German critic Friedrich 
Spielhagen in his Novelle oder Roman had, in 1876, made the 
distinction clear, and Poe, as early as 1842, had analyzed 
with great care the difference in technic between the novel 
and the tale, as he called the short story. All Hterary 
critics now agree that the short story, far from being an 
abridgment of a possible novel is a thing distinctive in the 
field of Hterary techpic, with a nature all its own. r 

The reasons for the development of this distinctive 
literary form in America are to be found in the hfe of the 
people. Here again is an instance of the truth that litera- 
ture is life. The circumstances of pioneer life in the early 
days, growing into conditions favorable to a great and new 
industrial development in later times, have discounted 
leisure as a factor of any moment in the life of the average 
American. The rush and hurry here from the start, the 
bigness of opportunity in America, the iteration and re- 
iteration of the cry "So much to do, so little done," have 



Tendencies 447 

forced upon Americans an acquired character which has 
become practically a national race trait. The restless 
spirit of the work-time of the American has thus come to 
dominate also his play-time. He has had and still has Httle 
desire for literary recreation which requires dehberate, 
continuous employment of his leisure moments. What 
more natural, then, than that the short story should find 
universal favor in America, if only for its shortness? The 
growth of the magazine, too, fostered the development of 
the short story, for the magazine became the natural 
medium for its distribution. And finally, the genius of the 
short story, Edgar Allan Poe, chose America for his theatre 
and he chose it early in the Hterary history of the country. 
He showed the power of this literary form, and it rapidly 
became the vogue. 

The account of the origin and development of the short 
stoiy in America makes a most interesting chapter in its 
liteiary history. Looking backward through our literary 
records we first catch ghmpses of the short story in the 
work of Charles Brockden Brown. Short stories are em- 
bedded in his long stories of Arthur Merwyn and Wieland. 
Brown gives us the short story in solution, but the solu- 
tion is never precipitated. He is merely the potential short- 
story writer. 

Beginning with Irving, however, the form becomes crys- 
tallized; in his sketches and tales we readily discover the 
germ of the story of local color which is so popular to-day. 
The influence of eighteenth century writers, especially of 
Addison and Steele, is very evident in the work of Irving. 
But, as Professor Smith says, Irving's tales and sketches 
"are an evolution from rather than an imitation of the 
Spectator. Sir Roger de Coverley," he continues, "is a typ- 
ical character sketch. But Rip van Winkle is more than 



44S Amcfican Literature 

a character sketch, it is a character sketch in the moment 
of transition into a short story." After Irving but one 
really good short story appeared before Poe began writing. 
This was William Austin's Peter Ritgg. published in 1S24. 
which, in theme and atmosphere, is prophetic of Haw- 
thorne. 

Witli Poe the short story becomes a distinctive literary 
type, a form essentially and peculiarly American. With 
him it is a conscious, deliberate creation of the literary 
technician. And he analyzes his method minutely and 
presents it in clear unequivocal terms, so that all who run 
may read and those who dare may follow. Writing in 
Grahdtus Magazine for May, 1S42, he says: "A skillful 
literary artist has constructed a tale. If wise, he has not 
fashioned his thoughts to accommodate his incidents; but 
having conceived with dehberate care a certain unique or 
single effect to be wrought out, he then invents such in- 
cidents—he then combines such events — as may best aid 
him in estabUshing this preconceived effect. If his xery 
initial sentence tend not to the out-bringing of this effect, 
then he has failed in his first step. In the whole composition 
there should be no word written of wliich the tendency, 
direct or indirect, is not to the one pre-established design. 
And by such means, ^^-ith such care and skill, a picture is 
at length painted which leaves in the mind of him who 
contemplates it with a kindred art a sense of the fullest 
satisfaction. The idea of the tale has been presented un- 
blemished because undisturbed; and this is an end unat- 
tainable by the novel." 

Hawthorne's name is linked with Poe's as the greatest 
of American short-story wTiters. Yet his method is totally 
unhke Poe's; his aim wholly different. And his technic 
is far less perfect, but the impression he makes is just as 



Tendencies 449 

forceful; the effect, perhaps, more lasting. As writers of 
the weird they stand unexcelled ; but the weirdness of Poe 
is realistic, the weirdness of Hawthorne symbolic. 

The next contribution to our short-stor>- literature was 
made by Fitz-James O'Brien in 1859 with his tale What 
Was It? whose mystery is wrought with an almost Poe-like 
touch. This was followed in 1863 by Edward Everett 
Hale's The Man Without a Country, which now ranks as one 
of our American classics. 

In that same year Bret Harte, our next short-story 
writer of note, began to send stories to the magazines. He 
originated a new t>pe and, after the manner of Poe, made 
a critical analysis of his method, for he believed that he 
was the first to write the t>'pical American stor>'. Since 
his formula has been followed by many of our recent tellers 
of tales I shall quote from his article in the CornkiU 
Magazine, July, 1899, in which he tells us how to do 
it. '"The secret of the American short story-," he says, 
"is the treatment of characteristic American life, with 
absolute knowledge of its peculiarities and s>Tnpathy with 
its methods; with no fastidious ignoring of its habitual 
expression, or the inchoate poetry that may be foimd hidden 
even in its slang; with no moral determination except that 
which may be the legitimate outcome of the story itself; 
with no more elimination than may be necessar>' for the 
artistic conception, and ne\'er from the fear of the fetish 
of conventionalism. Of such is the American short story of 
to-day, the germ of American literature to come." 

The name of the short-story writer of to-day is legion. 
A review of the preceding pages of this volume and a j^nce 
at the table of contents of a few numbers of our current 
magazines and periodicals will show to what extent the short 
story has taken hold of the American public. The demand 



450 American Literature 

is insistent, constant; the supply plentiful and really good. 
The short story has become the dominant note in the liter- 
ary history of America. It has become indeed and in truth 
the literary genre of America. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Albright, Evelyn M.: The Short Story. (1907.) 

Barrett, C. R.: Short Story Writing. (1900.) 

Canby, H. S.: The Short Story in English. (1909.) 

Dye, C: The Story Teller's Art. (1907.) 

Esenwein, J. Berg.: Writing the Short Story. (1908.) 

Grabo, C. N.: The Art of the Short Story. (1913.) 

Harte, Bret : The Rise of the Short Story. (In the Cornhill Magazine, 

July, 1899.) 
Jessup, A., and Canby, H. S.: The Book of the Short Story. (1903.) 
Mabie, H. W.: American Fiction Old and New. (In The Outlook, 

October 26, 191 2.) 
Matthews, B.: The Philosophy of the Short Story. (1901.) 

The Short Story: Specimens Illustrating its Development. (1907.) 
Notestein, L. L., and Dunn, W. H.: The Modern Short Story. 

(1914.) 
Perry, Bliss: A Study of Prose Fiction, chapter XII. (1902.) 
Pitkin, Walter B.: Short Story Writing. (1912.) 
Smith, C. Alphonso: The American Short Story. (1912.) 
Snaith, Lewis W.: The Writing of the Short Story. (1902.) 

///. The American Drama ' 

Many critics to-day believe that as the conversational 
essay shadowed forth the short story, so the short story 
shadows forth the drama; that indeed the day of the 
drama in American letters is almost come. Nearly twenty 
years ago Professor Brander Matthews declared that the 
time was ripe for the ascendancy of the drama in our Utera- 
ture, and Mr. Percy MacKaye in The Playhouse and the 
Play, published in 1910, says: "Our national Hfe now claims 
the theater to express itself and to that end the theater 
must be overhauled and reconstructed to meet the larger 



Tendencies 451 

needs of national life. In America itself, lies the assured 
renascence of American drama." 

There is no doubt that the development of dramatic 
literature in America was retarded in the early years of the 
nineteenth century by the remarkable growth of periodical 
literature and the wide popularity of the story as the pre- 
ferred Hterary type. The potential play-writer was lured 
into one or the other of these fields. The American stage 
of those times merely reflected the London theater. There, 
under the leadership of John PhiHp Kemble, the Enghsh 
players gave reproductions of the old dramatists, especially 
of Shakespeare. After this followed a period of importa- 
tion and adaptation of the German and French dramas for 
both the American and the Enghsh audience. There was 
no call for the actor to be the abstract and brief chronicle 
of his time, as in the days of Shakespeare and later of 
Sheridan. The newspaper, which Professor Matthews calls 
''a sUce of contemporary hfe," set forth from day to day the 
joys of Uving and the tragedies of Hfe withal. There was 
no demand for the play which mirrored the Hfe of the age 
and the nation. But with the full reaHzation of selfhood 
as a nation, Americans came to demand nationaHsm in their 
Hterary products. The desire for the local color touch on 
our stage harks back, indeed, to our first successful play- 
wright, Royall Tyler, whose drama The Contrast was a 
plea for things American in face of the even-then fashion- 
able Anglomania. No general movement, however, for 
nationaHsm in the American drama took place until within 
comparatively recent years. James A. Heme (i 840-1 901), 
in such dramas as Margaret Flemming, Shore Acres, and 
Sag Harbor, and Bronson Howard, in Shenandoah and The 
Henrietta, first gave the American pubHc a taste of the play 
that was truly American in outlook and theme, and such 



452 American Literature 

plays became immensely popular. The hint was taken by 
other writers of plays and soon Augustus Thomas, Clyde 
Fitch, and Edward Sheldon were furnishing the stage with 
the season's leading play, for example, Arizona, Nathan 
Hale, and Salvation Nell. More and more of late have 
writers turned their talents to the making of plays, until 
to-day university men who are electing for themselves the 
literary career are deliberately choosing the dramatic form 
in which to voice their message. Witness in this connec- 
tion, the work of William Vaughn Moody in such plays as 
The Faith Healer and The Great Divide, and the work of 
Percy MacKaye in Jeanne d'Arc, The Canterbury Pilgrims, 
and The Scarecrow. Many other Americans are also pro- 
ducing notable dramatic work. To mention only three: 
Josephine Preston Peabody Marks, whose play The Piper 
won the Stratford prize in 1910; Charles Rann Kennedy 
(though born in England, we may call him an American), 
whose symboUc dramas The Servant in the House and The 
Terrible Meek have aroused much interest among play- 
goers; and David Belasco, whose play The Return of Peter 
Grimm is, says Professor Matthews, "more vitally poetic, 
more sincerely imaginative, and more subtly truthful in its 
psychology than Maeterhnck's Monna Vanna and Haupt- 
mann's Sunken Bell." 

The interest of the literary leaders of America in this 
form of expression is shown by the organization of such 
associations as the Wisconsin Dramatic Society, whose mem- 
bers include the leaders of culture, not only in the Uni- 
versity of Wisconsin but throughout the State; and of the 
Drama League of America, with branches in most of our 
large and in many of our small cities. The avowed purpose 
of these organizations is to create an audience for the good 
play, to educate the public dramatic taste. Other evidences 



Tendencies 453 

of this interest are the work of Miss Minnie Hersts as 
director of the Educational Theatre for Children and 
Young People (New York City) ; of Charles Sprague Smith 
of the People's Institute of New York City; of Donald 
Robertson of Chicago with his endowed repertoire; and 
of Winthrop Ames of New York City with the New Theatre 
during its brief existence and with the Little Theatre since 
its foundation January i, 191 2. The popularity of the 
dramatic form is also shown by the successful dramatiza- 
tion of American novels and stories, noteworthy instances 
of which are Ben-Hur, The Awakening of Helena Ritchie, 
Rebecca of Sunnyhrook Farm, Little Women, and The Trail 
of the Lonesome Pine. 

Is the pecuhar restlessness of the average American, be- 
fore spoken of, creating such a distaste for the old-fashioned 
idle hour in the hbrary that he must have his stories read 
to him from the stage ? Will this desire become sufficiently 
wide-spread and emphatic to force the best of our literary 
activities into dramatic form? The novel has never been 
in perfect tune with American life; and the great American 
novel has never been written. The short story has struck 
the key-note of American Hf e here and there ; and the great 
short story has been written now and again. In 1899 Bret 
Harte called the American short story "the germ of Ameri- 
can Hterature to come." Will the near future give us the 
great American play ? The signs of the times seem to an- 
swer "Yes." Mr. William Dean Howells contends that we 
have already "a drama which has touched our Hfe in many 
characteristic points, which has dealt with our moral and 
material problems and penetrated psychological regions 
which it seemed impossible an art so objective should 
reach. Mainly it has been gay as our prevalent mood is; 
mainly it has been honest as our habit is in cases where 



454 American Literature 

we believe we can afford it; mainly it has been decent 
and clean and sweet as our average life is; and now that 
Ibsen no longer writes new plays, I would rather take my 
chance of pleasure and profit with a new American play 
than with any other sort of new play." "If ever a nation 
was ready for a national drama," declares Professor Smith, 
"that nation is America." And "when it comes," he con- 
tinues, "as surely it will come, the short story will have 
achieved its greatest triumph." 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Andrews, Charlton: The Drama To-day. 
Archer, William: A Manual of Craftsmanship. 
Cofi&n, Charles H.: The Appreciation of the Drama. 
Craig, E. Gordon: On the Art of the Theater. 

Crawford, Mary Caroline: The Romance of the American Theatre. 
Dukes, Ashley: Modern Dramatists. 
Eaton, Walter Pritchard: The Americatt Stage of Today. 
Hale, E. E., Jr.: Dramatists. 

Hamilton, Clayton: The Theory of the Theatre and Other Principles 
of Dramatic Criticism. 
Studies in Stagecraft. 
Hapgood, Norman: The Stage in America. 
Hunt, Elizabeth R.: The Play of Today. 

The Drama League Convention. (In The Drama, August, 191 2.) 
Jones, Arthur Henry: The Foundatioyi of a National Drama. (In 

North American Review, November, 1907.) 
Leonard, W. E.: The Wisconsin Dramatic Society. (In The Drama, 

May, 1912.) 
MacKaye, Percy: The Playhouse and the Play. 
Matthews, E.: A Study of the Drama. 
Studies of the Stage. 
The Development of the Drama. 

The Great American Play. (In The Saturday Evening Post, 
October 19, 191 2.) 
Moses, Montrose J.: The American Dramatist. 
Peck, Mary Gray: The Movement for a New American Drama. (In 

The English Journal, March, 191 2.) 
Sharp, R. F. : yl Short History of the English Stage. 
Walkley, A. B.: Drama and Life. 



INDEX 



Names of authors from whom extracts are quoted in this book are printed 
in small capitals; names of all other authors and all other names are printed 
in ordinary lower-case; titles of extracts and books from which extracts are 
chosen, and all magazine titles, are printed in italics; titles of works sug- 
gested for reading and of works merely mentioned are printed in lower- 
case roman, enclosed in quotation marks; numbers refer to page; numbers 
in black type refer to page on which the biographical note is given. 



A Corn Song, 437. 

A Flogging at Sea, 11 2-1 18. 

"A Garland to Sylvia," 438. 

A Glimpse of Mendelssohn, 251. 

"A Golden Wedding and Other 

Tales," 320. 
A Letter from Mr. Ezekiel Biglow, 

173-177- 
A Literary History of America, 405. 
"A New England Nim," 335. 
"A Prince of India," 217. 
A Soutfiern Girl, 424. 
A Storm of tJte Bermudas, 7-9. 
A Time-Worn Belle, 48-49. 
A True Reportory of the Wracke and 

Redemption of Sir Thomas Gates, 7. 
"A Victorian Anthology," 415. 
Abbott, Lyman, 362. 
Absalom, 107-110. 
Adams, John, 24. 
Addison, 24, 254, 447. 
Alcott, Amos Bronson, 200. 
Alcott, Louisa, 200. 
Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 224, 415. 
America, 118. 
America to England, 432. 
Ames, Winthrop, 453. 
"An American Anthology," 415. 
"Arizona," 452. 
"Artemxts Ward." See Browne, 

Charles F., 200. 
Arthur Merwyn, 55, 447. 



Atlantic Monthly, 167, 178, 224, 303. 

443, 444- 
Austin, William, 448. 
Autobiography {FraukUn's), 17, 24, 26. 

"Balaclava," 273. 

Balder' s Wife, 281, 

Baltimore, 275, 305. 

Barlow, Joel, 46, 49. 

Bates, Arlo, 391. 

Battle-Hymn of the Republic, 291. 

Battle of the Kegs, 41-43. 

Beecher, Henry Ward, 193, 247. 

Being a Lord, 324. 

Belasco, David, 452. 

"Ben Hur, a Tale of the Christ," 

217, 453- 
Bibliography, General, 3-4; Colo- 
nial Epoch, 19-20; Revolutionary 
Era, 61-62; National Period, Early 
Writers, Great Names, 96-97; 
Of Lesser Note, 119; Writers of 
the Mid-Century and After, Great 
Names, 190-193; Of Lesser Note, 
Fiction, 234-235; Non-Fiction, 
267-268; Poetry, 294-295; Later 
and Present-Day Writers, Fic- 
tion, 361-362; Non-Fiction, 414; 
Poetrj^ 440-441; the Americ'an 
Magazine, 445-446; the Ameri- 
can Short Story, 450; the Ameri- 
can Drama, 454. 



455 



456 



Index 



Biglow Papers, 167, 170, 443. 

" Bill Nye." See Nye, Edgar 

Wilson, 201. 
Bimini and the Fountain of Youth, 

264-267. 
Books, 378. 

Books and Culture, 366. 
Boston, 12, 15, 21, 58, 59, 207, 296, 

Boston Advertiser, 443. 

Boston Courier, 443. 

Bowdoin College, 134, 147. 

Brackenridge, Hugh H., 53. 

Bradstreet, Anne, 10. 

Brown, Charles Brockden, 52, 55, 

no, 443, 447. 
Brown University, 292. 
Browne, Charles F., 200, 201. 
Browning, 385. 

Browning's Unpopularity, 385. 
Brussels in the Sixteenth Century, 244. 
Bryan, William J., 374. 
Bryant, William Cullen, 52, 91, 

442. 
BuNNER, Henry Cuyler, 427. 
Burke, 21. 

Burnett, Frances Hodgson, 324. 
Bums, 161. 

Burroughs, John, 364. 
Butler, Nicholas Murray, 409. 
Butler's "Hudibras," 47. 

Cable, George Washington, 305, 

308. 
Cafe des Exiles, 308. 
Cambridge, 9, in, 120, 264, 296. 
Cambridge (England), 147, 178. 
Carleton, Will, 417. 
Carlyle, 120. 
Carman, Bliss, 434. 
Cary, Alice, 281, 282. 
Cary, Phcebe, 282. 
Century Magazine, 4x5, 444. 
Changes of the Nineteetith Century, 

409. 
"Changing America," 411. 
"Charles Egbert Craddock." See 

MuRFREE, Mary N., 326. 



Charleston College, 274. 

Chatham, 21. 

Cheney, John Vance, 421. 

Chicago University, 437. 

China to the Ranging Eye, 411, 

Churchill, Winston, 355. 

"Clari, the Maid of Milan," 103. 

Clemens, Samuel L., 224. 

Coleridge, 83, 120. 

Collins, 273. 

"Colonel Carter of Cartersville," 

305- 
Columbia University, 395, 409, 432, 

433- 
"Common Sense," 33. 
Concord, 121, 129, 134. 
Concord Hymn, 129. 
Confidence, 320-324. 
"Coniston," 355. 
Contemplations, 10-12. 
Cooper, James Fenimore, 71, 91, 

no. 
Cornhill Magazine, 449. 
Cosmopolitan, 444. 
Current Opinion, 444. 
Curtis, George William, 254. 

"Daisy Miller," 320. 

Dana, Jr., Richard Henry, hi, 

443- 
Dartmouth, 80, 434. 
Davis, Richard Harding, 341. 
Dawn at the Moreno Ranch, 197-200. 
"Death in a School- Room," 443. 
Deland, Margaret Wade, 331. 
Democracy and Education, 409. 
Democratic Review, 443. 
"Deserted Village," 161. 
Dial, 443. 
Dickens, 444. 
Dickinson, Emily, 285. 
Difficulties of Union, 247. 
Dixie, 268. 
Donne, John, 10. 
Doubt, 426. 

Drake, Joseph R., 97, 98. 
Drama League of America, 452. 
Dunbar, Paul Lawrence, 437. 



Index 



^57 



Dunne, Finley Peter, 378. 
Dw^GHT, Timothy, 46, 51. 

Each and All, 129-131. 
Edinburgh, 178. 
Edinburgh Review, 442. 
"Editha's Burglar," 324. 
Educational Review, 409, 444. 
Educational Theatre for Children 

and Young People, 453. 
Edwards, Jonathan, 16, 51. 
Eliot, Charles William, 380. 
Eliot, George, 444. 
Eliot, John, 9. 
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 120-121, 

200, 443, 444- 
Engineering Magazine, 444. 
Everett, Edward, 235, 443. 
Everybody's, 444. 

"Fable for Critics," 167. 

Farewell Address, 28-30. 

"Federalist," 35. 

Field, Eugene, 417. 

Fiske, John, 259. 

Fitch, Clyde, 452. 

Foster, Stephen C, 280. 

Fox, 21. 

Fox, John, Jr., 333. 

Franklin, Benjamin, 21, 24, 443. 

" Freedom of the Will," 16. 

Freeman, Mary E. Wilkins, 335. 

Fren^eau, Philip, 52, 53. 

FuUer, Margaret, 443. 

"Gallagher," 341. 
Garland, Hamlin, 331. 
General Magazine, 443. 
Gentleman's Magazine, 443. 
Gettysburg Address, 240. 
Gilder, Richard Watson, 415. 
"Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death" 

Speech, 30-33. 
Gladstone, 35. 
Godfrey, Thomas, 53. 
Goethe, 120. 
Goldsmith, 161. 
Gosse, Edmund, 287. 



Grady, Henry W., 259. 
Graham's, 443, 448. 
Greeley, Horace, 281. 

Hail Columbia, 41, 43-45. 

Hale, Edward Everett, 207, 443, 

449. 
Halleck, Fitz-Greene, 97, 442. 
Hamilton, Alexander, 21, 34. 
Hamilton's Speech in the New York 

Convention, June 24, 1788, 35-37. 
Harper's Magazine, 254, 303, 444. 
Harris, Benjamin, 12. 
Harris, Joel Chandler, 305, 310. 
Harte, Bret, 223, 350, 449, 453. 
"Hartford Wits," 46, 47. 
Harvard College, 15, in, 120, 121, 

131, 166, 177, 207, 235, 244, 256, 

259, 262, 380, 387, 400, 405, 432, 

437, 438. 
Hauptmann, 452. 
Hawkeye, Chingachgook, and Uncas, 

72-80. 
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 83, 133- 

134, 448, 449- 
Hay, John, 292. 

Hayne, Paul Hamilton, 268, 274. 
"Helen Hunt." See Jackson, 

Helen Fiske, 197. 
Henry, Patrick, 21, 30. 
Herbert, George, 10. 
Heme, James A., 451. 
Hersts, Minnie, 453. 
Hiawatha's Wooing, 1 53-161. 
Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, 

264. 
His Christmas Miracle, 326. 
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 16, 121, 

177, 443, 444- 
Home Journal, 105. 
Home, Sweet Home, 103-104. 
Homer, 91. 

Hopkinson, Francis, 41. 
Hopkinson, Joseph, 41, 43. 
HovEY, Richard, 434. 
"How Sleep the Brave," 273. 
Howard, Bronson, 451. 
Howe, Julia Ward, 291. 



458 



Index 



HowELLS, William Dean, 302- 

303, 320, 443. 444, 453- 
"Huckleberry Finn," 224. 
Hugh Wynne, 296. 
Hugh's School Days, 296. 

Ibsen, 454. 

"Ichabod," 80. 

" Ik Marv-el." See Mitchell, 

Donald Grant, 204. 
"Iliad" (Bryant's), 91. 
In Ole Virginia, 313. 
In Opposition to Writs of Assistance, 

21-24. 
In the Wheat-Field, 274-275. 
Irving, Washington, 63, 91, 97, 

296, 443, 447, 448. 
Israfel, 89-91. 

Jackson, Helen Fiske, 197. 

James, Henry, 134, 320. 

Jamestown, 5, 7. 

Jay, John, 35. 

"Jeanne d'Arc," 438, 452. 

Jefferson, Thomas, 21, 30, 37. 

Jefferson's First Inaugural Address, 

37-39- 
Jim Bliidsoe, of the "Prairie Belle," 

292. 
John Gilley, 381. 
"John Ward, Preacher," 331, 
Johns Hopkins University, 275. 
Jordan, David Starr, 393. 
" Josh Billings." See Shaw, Henry 

W., 200. 
Journal (Woolman's), 17. 
Journal of Sociology, 444. 
Justice vs. Vitidicliveness, 368-372. 

Kemble, John Philip, 451. 
Kennedy, Charles Rann, 452, 
Key, Francis Scott, 100. 
"Knickerbocker History of New 

York," 63. 
Knickerbocker Magazine, 105, 443. 

Lamb, Charles, 17, 254. 
Lanier, Sidney, 268, 275. 



Lazarus, Emma, 287. 
Learning to Write, 26-28. 
"Leather Stocking Tales," 71. 
Leland Stanford University, 393. 
Lincoln, Abraham, 240. 
Literary Magazine, 443. 
Little Boy Blue, 417-418. 
Little Lord Faimtleroy, 324. 
"Little Men," 200. 
"Little Women," 200, 453. 
London, 5, 103, 451. 
London, Jack, 359. 
Long, William J., 112. 
Longfellow, Hentiy Wadsworth, 

147, 166, 264, 296, 443, 444. 
Longueville' s Sketch, 320-324. 
LouNSBURY, Thomas R., 385. 
Lowell, James Russell, 121, 166- 

167, 264, 296, 443, 444. 



Mabie, Hamilton Wright, 320, 
366. 

MacKaye, Percy, 438, 450, 452. 

MacWhirter's Fireplace, 306. 

Madison, James, 35. 

Maeterlinck, 452. 

Magnolia Christi Americana, 15. 

"Main-Travelled Roads," 331. 

"Marco Bozzaris," 442. 

"Margaret Fleming," 451. 

"Mark Twain." See Clemens, 
Samuel L., 224. 

Markham, Edwin, 419. 

Marks, Josephine Preston Peabody, 
438, 452. 

Marse Chan, 313. 

Massachusetts Institute of Tech- 
nology, 391. 

Mather, Cotton, 15. 

Mather, Increase, 15. 

Mather, Richard, 9, 14. 

Mathers, 14, 121. 

Matthews, Brander, 72, 296, 395, 
446, 450, 451, 452. 

Maud Midler, 162-166. 

McFingal to the Whigs, 47. 

"Meadow Brook," 280. 



Index 



459 



Memoirs of Remarkables in the Life 
and tlie Death of the Ever-Memo- 
rable Dr. Increase Mather, 15. 

" Mere Literature and Other Es- 
says," 406. 

Miller, Joaquin, 416. 

Mitchell, Don.\ld Grant, 204. 

Mitchell, S. Weir, 296. 

"Moima Vanna," 452. 

Moody, William Vaughn, 437, 452. 

Morris, George, 104. 

Mother England, 425. 

Motley, John Lothrop, 244, 264, 
444. 

"Mr. Dooley." See Dunn-e, Fin- 
ley Peter, 378. 

Mr. Dooley Says, 378. 

Mr. Potipltar's New House, 254- 
256. 

Mr. Travers's First Hiinl, 341. 

Munsey's, 444. 

Murfree, Mary N., 326. 

My Double and Hoa.< He Undid Me, 
207. 

My Little Girl, 425. 

"My Old Kentucky Home," 280. 

Myself, 288. 



"Nathan Hale," 452. 

Nature in Poetry, 365. 

New Books, 391. 

New England Magazine, 443. 

New Orleans, 308. 

New York, 53, 55, 58, 91, 97, 105. 

223, 259, 287, 290, 296, 320, 331, 

335, 350, 362, 364, 368, 395, 415, 

419, 425. 
New York Corsair, 443. 
New York Mirror, 105, 443. 
New York Review, 442. 
NoRRis, Frank, 344. 
North American Review, 442, 443. 
Norton, Ch-^iles Eliot, 262, 443. 
Notes of Travel and Study in Italv, 

263. 
"Novelle oder Roman," 446. 
Nye, Edgar Wllson, 201, 203. 



O'Brien, Fitz- James, 449. 

O, Captain/ My Captain! 287,288- 
289. 

Ode on the Centenary of Abraham 
Lincoln, 438. 

Ode (Timrod), 273. 

"Odyssey" (Bryant's), 91; (Pal- 
mer's), 387. 

Oglethorpe College, 275. 

O'Hara, Theodore, 268, 270. 

"O. Henry." See Porter, Wil- 
LLAU Sidney, 350. 

Old Creole Days, 308. 

Old Folks at Home, 280-281. 

Old North Church, 15, 121. 

On a Honey Bee, 54-55. 

On the Death of Joseph Rodman 
Drake, 97-98. 

On the Federal Constitution, 25-26. 

On the Keeping of Slaves, 1 7-19. 

Otis, James, 21. 

"Over the Tea-Cups," 178. 

Oxford, 63. 147, 178. 

Page, Thomas Nelson, 305, 313. 

Paine, Tho\l\s, 21, 33. 

Palmer, George Herbert, 387. 

Parkman, Fr.\ncis, 256, 259. 

Payne, JOH^sf Howard, 103. 

Peck, Harry Thl-rston, 433. 

Peck, Samuel Minturn, 433. 

Pen and Ink, 395. 

People's Institute, 453. 

Pepys, 13. 

Perry, Bliss, 443. 

Peter Parley's Token, 443. 

"Peter Rugg," 44S. 

Peters, Phtllis Wheatley, 59. 

Phelps, William Lyon, 224. 

Philadelphia, 41, 53, 296, 368. 

PhiUips, Moses D., 444. 

Phillips, Wen-dell, 242. 

Pike, Albert, 268. 

Pike County Ballads, 292. 

Poe, Edgar Allan, 52, 83, 4i«, 

443, 447, 448, 449- 
"Poor Richard's .\lmanac," 24. 
Porter, Willl^m Sidney, 350. 



460 



Index 



"Precaution," 171. 

Princeton College, 16, 53, 400, 406. 

Psalm CXXXVII (Dwight), 51. 

"Psalm of Life," 443. 

Psychological Review, 444. 

Puck, 427. 

Quarterly Journal of Economics, 444. 

Raggylug, 2,i2-7,i^. 

Ramona, 197. 

Read, Thomas Buchanan, 283. 

"Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm," 

453- 
Recrimination, 430-432. 
Reply to Hayne, 80. 
Repplier, Agnes, 368. 
Reveries of a BacMor, 204. 
Richard Carvel, 355. 
Riley, James Whitcomb, 42*.. 
Ripley, George, 443. 
"Rip van Winkle," 447. 
Robertson, Donald, 453. 
Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep, 102- 

103. 
Roosevelt, Theodore, 368. 
"Rose of Butcher's Coolly," 331. 
Ross, Edwasd Alsvvorth, 411. 
Rossetti's A Sonnet is a Moment's 

Monument, 415. 
"Rudder Grange," 217. 

"Sacred Poems," 105. 

"Sag Harbor," 451. 

Salem Witchcraft, 13. 

Salt, 400-405. 

"Salvation Nell," 452. 

"School," 438. 

Scientific American, 444. 

Scott, Sir Walter, 63, 71. 

Scribner's Monthly, 415, 444. 

"Sea Tales," 71. 

Second Bunker Hill Oration, 81. 

Second Inaugural Address, 241-242. 

Seton, Ernest Thompson, 331. 

Sewall, Samuel, 13. 

Shakespeare, 7, 385, 451. 

Shaw, Henry W., 200, 202. 



Sheldon, Edward, 452, 
"Shenandoah," 451. 
Sheridan, 451. 
Sheridan's Ride, 283-285. 
"Shore Acres," 451. 
"Silence and Other Stories," 335. 
Sill, Edward Roland, 286. 
SiMMS, William Gilmore, iio. 
Simonds, Professor, 45, 120, 134, 

217, 286. 
"Sin and Society," 411. 
"Sir Roger de Coverley," 447. 
Smith, C. .Alphonso, 446, 447, 454. 
Smith, Charles Sprague, 453. 
Smith, Francis Hopkinson, 305. 
Smith, John, 5. 
Smith, Samuel F., 118. 
Smith, Sydney, 442. 
"Snow-Bound," 161. 
"Social Control," 411. 
Soine Islafids of the Lagoons, 303. 
Some Memories of Childhood, 355. 
Song of the Chattahoochee, 279-280. 
"Songs from Vagabondia," 434. 
Songs of Nature, 365. 
Southern Literary Messenger, 443. 
Spielhagen, Friedrich, 446. . 
Stedman, Edmimd Clarence, 121, 

415, 425- 
Steele, 447. 

Stockton, Frank R., 217. 
Stoddard, Richard Henry, 290, 

415- 
Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 193. 
Strachey, William, 7. 
Stratford-on-Avon, 438, 452. 
Stuart, Ruth McEnery, 305, 320. 
"Sunken Bell," 452. 
Symonds's "The Sonnet," 415. 

Tales of a Traveller, 64. 

Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the 

Atlantic, 264. 
Talks on the Study of Literature, 391. 
Taylor, Bayard, 251, 415. 
Tennyson, 83, 273. 
Thackeray, 444. 
"Thanatopsis," 91, 442. 



Index 



461 



The Adventure of My Aunt, 64-68. 

The Alhambra, 68. 

The Ambitious Guest, 134. 

The American Flag, 98. 

The American Scliolar, 121. 

The Arrow and tite Song, 152. 

The Autocrat of tlie Breakfast-Table, 

178, 183, 443. 
" The Awakening of Helena Ritchie," 

453- 
The Ballad of Nathan Hale, 41, 45- 

46. 
"The Battle of Bunker Hill," 53. 
Tlte Battle of tlie Ants, 131-133. 
The Bay Psalm Book, 9-10, 15. 
The Belfry Pigeon, 105-107. 
The Better Part, 372. 
The Bivouac of the Dead, 270-272. 
"The Brook" (Tennyson), 280. 
The Bucket, 101-102. 
The Building of the Cathedral, 263- 

264. 
The Bumblebee, 202-203. 
The Call of the Bugles, 434-437. 
The Call of tlte Wild, 359. 
"The Canterbury Pilgrims," 438, 

452. 
"The Cataract of Lodore," 280. 
The Chambered Nautilus, 178-179. 
The Changing Chinese, 411. 
The Character of Washington (Jeffer- 
son), 39-40; (Webster) 81-83; 

(Everett) 235-239. 
The Child, 432. 
"The Columbiad," 49. 
The Commoner, 374. 
The Conspiracy of Pontiac, 257. 
The Contrast, 58-59, 451. 
"The Cotter's Saturday Night," 161. 
The Count and the Wedding Guest, 

350-355- 
The Cotirtin', 170-173. 
The Courting of Madam Winthrop, 

13-14- 
The Crisis, 33. 
"The Crisis," 355. 
The Day is Done, 152. 
The Day of Freedom, 33-34. 



The Day of Judgment, 229-234. 
The Deacon's Masterpiece, 16, 180- 

183- 
The Death of McKinley, 393-395. 
The Death of Pontiac, 257-259. 
The Death of the Flowers, 91-92, 442. / 
The Declaration of Independence, 407- ,■ 

409. 
The Early Literary Career of Robert 

Browning, 385. 
"The Faith Healer," 452. 
The Federal Union, 80-81. 
The Feeling for Literature, 366-368. 
The Fool's Prayer, 286-287. 
The Frost Spirit, 161. 
"The Fruit of the Tree," 335. 
Tlie Garden Hose, 203. 
"The Gates Ajar," 229. 
The Ghetto and the Jews of Venice, 

304-305- 
"The Great Divide," 437, 452. 
The Hasty Pudding, 49-51. 
The Height of the Ridiculous, 179- 

180. 
"The Henrietta," 451. 
The Home Journal, 105. 
"The House of Life," 415. 
"The House of Mirth," 335. 
The Hurricane, 94. 
"The Innocents Abroad," 224. 
The Jumping Frog,andOtherSketches, 

224. 
The Lady or the Tiger, 217-223. 
The Last Days of Increase Mather, ' 

15-16. 
The Last of the Mohicans, 72. 
The Lessons of the Tragedy, 393. 
The Little Theatre, 453. 
The Lonesome Pine, 333. 
"The Lost Occasion," 80. 
The Lost Pleiad, iio-iii. 
The Man with the Hoe, 420-421. 
"The Man Without a Country," 

207, 443, 449- 
The Marshes of Glynn, 275-278. 
The Masque of the Red Death, 83-89. 
The Meaning of Education, 409. 
The Mirror, 105. 



462 



Index 



"The Mocking Bird," 268. 

The Mysterious Chambers, 68-71. 

The New England Primer, 12-13. 

The New South, 259. 

The New Theatre, 453. 

The Notorious Jumping Frog, etc., 

224-229. 
"The Octopus," 344. 
The Old Man and Jim, 421-423. 
The Old South and the New, 259-262. 
The Other One, 433-434. 
The Outlook, 362, 366. 
"The Partisan," no. 
"The Passionate Pilgrim," 320. 
'"The Philosophy of the Short Story," 

446. 
"The Pilot," 72. 
"The Piper," 438, 452. 
The Pit, 344. 

"The Playhouse and the Play," 450. 
The Potiphar Papers, 254. 
"The Prince of Parthia," 52. 
"The Raven," 442. 
"The Return of Peter Grimm," 452. 
"The Rise of Silas Lapham," 303. 
The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 244. 
"The Scarecrow," 438, 452. 
"The Scarlet Letter," 134. 
The Sea, 204-207. 
"The Servant in the House," 452. 
The Sewall Papers, 13. 
The Shepherd of King Adtnetus, 167. 
The Skeleton in Armor, 147-151. 
The Song of Hiawatha, 153. 
The Song of Myself, 288. 
The Songs of the Civil War, 395. 
The Sonnet, 415. 
The Spectator, 447. 
"The Spy," 71. 

The Star-Spangled Banner, loo-ioi. 
" The State," 406. 
"The Story of a Bad Boy," 224. 
The Story of "My Maryland," 395- 

400. 
Tlte Story of the Doodang, 311-313. 
"The Tempest," 7. 
"The Terrible Meek," 452. 
The Toll-Gatherer^ s Day, 140-146. 



The Trail of the Lonesome Pine, 333, 

453- 
The Trimmed Lamp, 350. 
"The Valley of Decision," 335. 
The Voice of the Scholar, 393. 
The Way to Arcady, 427-429. 
The Wheat Pit, 344-350. 
The White Man's Burden, 374. 
The Wild Honeysuckle, 52, 53-54, 96. 
"The Winning of the West," 368. 
"The Wolf, "344. 
The Wood Fire in No. 3, 306. 
The Yellow Fever in Philadelphia, 

55-57- 
Thomas, Augustus, 452. 
Thomas, Edith, 425. 
Thoreau, Henry D., 131, 200. 
Thoughts on a Thiinderstorm, 17. 
TiMROD, Henry, 268, 273. 
To a Waterfowl, 93, 442. 
To the Dandelion, 168-170. 
To the Death, 359-361. 
To tJie Fringed Gentian, 95. 
" To the Mocking Bird," 268. 
To the Right Honorable William, Earl 

of Dartmouth, 60. 
"To the Small Celandine," 96. 
"Tom Sawyer," 224. 
Topsy, 193-197. 
Toussaint L'Ouvcrture, 242-244. 
Transcendentalists, 120, 121, 200. 
Trotty's Wedding Tour, 229. 
True Relation, 5-7. 
Trumbull, John, 46, 47. 
Tuskeegee, 372. 
Tivice Told Tales, 134. 
Two Years Before the Mast, in, 112. 
Tyler, Professor, 37. 
Tyler, Royall, 53, 58, 451. 

Uncle Remus and the Little Boy, 311. 
Uncle Tom's Cabin, 193, 197. 
University of Cahfornia, 286. 
University of Georgia, 273. 
University of Wisconsin, 411. 

Van Bibber and Others, 341. 
Van Dyke, Henry, 400. 



Index 



463 



Venetian Life, 303, 443. 
Views A-Foot, 251. 

Walden, 131. 

Wallace, Lewis, 217. 

Ward, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, 

229. 
Washington Abroad and at Home, 235. 
Washington, Booker, 372. 
Washington, D. C, 100, 287, 437. 
Washington, George, 21, 28. 
Watts's "The Sonnet's Voice," 415. 
Webster, Daniel, 80. 
Welde, Thomas, 9. 
Wellesley College, 438. 
Wendell, Barrett, 17, 105, 121, 

134, 296, 405. 
Westminster Abbey, 147. 
Wharton, Edith, 335. 
"What Was It?" 449. 
Whitman, Walt, 287, 443. 
Whittier, John Greenleaf, 17, 80, 

161, 273, 443. 



"Wieland," 55, 447. 

Wilcox, Ella Wheeler, 429. 

Wild Animals I Have Known, 332. 

WiLLARD, Emma H., 102. 

Willis, Nathaniel Parker, 105, 
443- 

Wilson, Woodrow, 313, 406. 

Wisconsin Dramatic Society, 452. 

Woman's Rights, 201. 

Wood BERRY, George E., 432. 

Woodman, Spare That Tree, 104-105. 

WooDWORTH, Samuel, ioi. 

Woolman, John, 17. 

Wordsworth, 91, 96. 

Wordsworth's "Nuns Fret Not," 
415- 

Wordsworth's "Scorn Not the Son- 
net," 415. 

Worth While, 430. 

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod, 418- 
419- 

Yale College, 46, 51, 105, 204, 385. 



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